)  O  .  }^] 


'T 


^j^  t\vt  lUeolojjJca/  ^ 

^  PRINCETON,   N.  J.  ^Ut 


Purchased   by  the    Hamill    Missionary   Fund. 


BV  3705  .H63  H63  1914 
Hogg,  Rena  L.,  1867-1956. 
A  master-builder  on  the  Nil< 


OCT  1 9  191- 

A 

MASTER-BUILDER 

ON  THE  NILE 


BEING  A  RECORD  OF/,THE  LIFE 
AND  AIMS  OF  JOHN  HOGG,  D.D. 

Christian  Missionary 


BY 
RENA  L.  HOGG 

Oj  the  American  {United  Presbyterian)  Mission  in  Egypt 


PITTSBURGH,    PA. 

UNITED    PRESBYTERIAN    BOARD 

OF    PUBLICATION 


Copyright,  191 4,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


tlTo  iWp  iWottier 

IN  MEMORY  OF  THE  LABOURS 
AND  SACRIFICES  OF  HER  PAST 
WHICH  SHE  HOLDS  SO  CHEAP 
AND  OTHERS  HOLD    SO    DEAR 


-^^^^  ^   Cfe^  ^^^  -^  >»*i-*^  ^^y^ 


(See  page  236.) 


PREFACE 

IT  is  the  generous  custom  in  the  world  of  books  to 
allow  a  writer  one  last  word  that  none  are  bound  to 
read.    What  woman  could  refuse  the  privilege? 

Like  the  apostle  Paul,  this  biography  is  "  as  one  born 
out  of  due  time  " ;  and  this  fact,  while  branding  it  as 
a  rash  venture  to  a  reluctant  publisher,  has  brought 
to  the  more  reluctant  writer  both  stimulus  and  strength. 
For  why  should  her  comrades  in  Egypt  have  asked  her 
to  unearth  its  buried  history  did  it  not  contain  enduring 
interest  and  a  special  message  for  to-day? 

I  want  to  thank  my  fellow-missionaries,  as  I  lay  down 
my  pen,  for  the  labour  they  have  assigned  me.  I  thank 
them  for  two  years  of  intimate  companionship  with  one 
who  was  too  soon  taken  from  me,  and  who,  as  I  have 
worked,  has  been  teaching  me  lessons  that  in  his  lifetime 
I  was  too  young  to  learn.  God  grant  that  those  who 
read  may  see  what  I  have  seen  and  feel  what  I  have 
felt  as  I  have  written! 

Other  friends,  too,  I  thank  for  help  I  could  ill  have 
spared,  friends  who  I  trust  will  recognise  their  unre- 
corded names.  I  thank  them  because  their  faith  did 
not  falter  when  my  own  was  weak,  their  praise  rescued 
me  from  disgust,  and  their  kindness,  remembrance,  and 
prayers  were  my  daily  portion.  To  some  my  thanks 
are  also  due  for  more  material  assistance,  and  foremost 
among  these  is  "  Hugh  Laurence,"  who,  as  brother,  critic, 
and  fellow-worker,  has  been,  in  matters  great  and  small, 
an  unfailing  helper. 

7 


8  PREFACE 

All  these  I  thank  from  my  heart.  The  book  is  theirs, 
not  mine ;  and  if  it  does  not  disappoint  them,  if  it  carries 
to  them  stimulus  and  pleasure,  I  shall  feel  that  the 
writing  of  it  has  made  me  rich. 

Some  may  read  this  book  who  know  little  about  Egypt, 
and  I  would  seek  to  guard  them  against  misapprehen- 
sions. Of  recent  years  an  Egypt  has  come  into  being 
of  which  little  knowledge  can  be  gained  from  these  pages. 
A  spirit  of  change  has  entered  the  land.  It  has  touched 
politics  and  education,  journalism  and  commerce,  the 
Coptic  Church  and  Islam,  and  the  manners  and  customs 
of  the  people.  To  understand  the  present,  we  must  know 
the  past;  and  unaffected  by  the  march  of  progress  are 
large  regions  and  essential  elements  that  remain  unal- 
tered. But  for  accurate  information  about  the  new 
Egypt,  the  reader  must  go  elsewhere.  It  is  of  an  Egypt 
of  yesterday  that  this  book  has  to  tell. 

R.  L.  H. 


CONTENTS 


Prologue        .... 

I.  A  Collier's  Wean 

II.  Student  Days 

III.  Serving  His  Apprenticeship 

IV.  Marriage  and  Shipwreck 
V.  At  the  Port  of  Egypt 

VI.  At  the  Heart  of  the  Problem 

VII.  In  the  City  of  the  Patriarch 

VIII.  In  the  Wake  of  Persecution  . 

IX.  Pioneer  Days  in  Assiut    . 

X.  His  Daily  Task    .... 

XI.  Laying  Foundations  . 

XII.  Flotsam  and  Jetsam  . 

XIII.  Wanted:  a  College     . 

XIV.  The  Care  of  All  the  Churches 
XV.  Arabi  Pasha's  Rebellion  . 

XVI.  Winds  of  Doctrine     . 

XVII.  The  End  of  the  Journey  . 

Epilogue 

Index 


13 

17 
32 

49 
62 

70 
85 
99 
no 
124 
141 
154 

17s 
184 
211 

239 
259 
275 
292 

297 


9 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

John  Hogg Frontispiece 


FACING    PAGE 


College  Days  at  Edinburgh         .....       34 

Egyptian   River   Boats —  ) 

V     ,        .        .        .00 
"The   Ibis,"   the  Mission    Boat  j 

Bamba 118 

View  of  Assiut  During  Nile  Overflow 


i 


147 
Protestant  Church  at  Assiut 

Assiut  College 196 

Village  Scenes       ........     228 

God's  Acre :  Grave  of  John  Hogg     ....     288 


PROLOGUE 

THE  days  of  legend  have  not  wholly  fled.  There 
are  regions  in  the  Orient  where  the  centuries  fall 
from  us  and  we  seem  nearer  to  the  beginnings 
of  history  than  in  our  modern  West.  Facts,  instead  of 
being  buried  under  to-morrow's  news  and  forgotten, 
are  stored  in  the  memory  of  an  unhurried  race,  repeated 
by  friend  to  friend  and  by  father  to  son,  and  talked  over 
with  the  vivid  vocabulary  of  the  East  in  a  calm  and 
ample  leisure.    Thus  legend  grows. 

In  many  of  the  towns  and  villages  of  Upper  Egypt, 
tales  have  been  preserved  which  gain  in  glamour  with 
the  years,  about  a  man  whom  the  people  call  "  Hoj," 
who  "brought  light  to  the  land."  He  was  "like  an 
Egyptian  exactly,"  and  yet  "  like  an  angel  from  Heaven." 
At  his  words  ignorant  Mohammedan  robbers  were  trans- 
formed into  honest  Christians  in  a  night,  and  his  purse, 
unfailing  as  the  widow's  meal  and  oil,  was  used  not  to 
feed  an  Elijah  but  to  satisfy  all  who  asked.  That  con- 
verts so  lightly  made  would  not  have  endured,  or  that 
indiscriminate  generosity  would  have  been  the  worst  of 
mission  policy,  does  not  occur  to  these  loving  souls. 
Without  thought  of  untruth,  whatever  they  consider 
good  they  attribute  to  him.  His  sermons  are  remem- 
bered; his  love  of  song,  his  powers  of  physical  endur- 
ance, the  illustrations  he  employed  to  point  a  lesson,  his 
very  gestures  (as  Egyptian  as  his  accent)  and  the  East- 

13 


14  PROLOGUE 

ern  modes  of  thought  that  made  his  words  win  home, 
discovering  the  joints  in  his  hearers'  armour,  all  are 
treasured  and  described. 

Twenty-eight  years  have  passed  since  what  was  mortal 
of  this  man,  so  dearly  honoured,  was  laid  in  his  desert 
grave,  and  though  love  and  legend  have  kept  his  memory 
as  green  as  the  Nile  valley  in  December,  there  is  danger 
that  the  message  of  his  life  may  be  lost  under  a  tangled 
mass  of  fact  and  fiction.  Not  to  be  canonised  but  to 
be  followed  is  the  tribute  such  a  man  would  claim. 

It  is  no  saint  or  wonder-worker  whom  we  see  in  the 
records  he  has  left  behind  him.  It  is  a  man  of  like 
passions  with  ourselves  who  there  reveals  himself,  but 
a  strong  man  with  one  consuming  purpose  that  made 
a  unity  of  all  his  days. 

"  The  evangelisation  of  the  world  in  a  single  genera- 
tion "  was  as  yet  an  unknown  watchword,  but  this  ideal 
was  implicit  in  the  thoughts  that  moved  him,  and  he 
dared  to  proclaim  it  possible  if  the  Church  would  but 
yield  to  her  Lord  the  obedience  of  faith. 

He  had  certain  clearly  defined  ideas  as  to  the  means 
by  which  alone  the  campaign  could  be  conducted  to  a 
speedy  and  successful  issue.  He  laboured  to  win  others 
to  his  point  of  view — his  fellow-labourers,  the  Church 
of  their  planting,  and  the  Church  that  sent  him  forth — 
in  order  that  neither  time  nor  money  might  be  squan- 
dered on  "  the  good  "  that  should  have  been  hoarded  for 
"  the  best." 

These  ideas,  rightly  or  wrongly,  he  considered  to  be 
the  greatest  thing  in  his  life.  Writing  of  them,  he  said, 
"  I  am  willing  to  have  them  written  in  large  characters 
as  my  epitaph  after  my  mission  life  has  ended,  though 
all  else  concerning  me  and  my  work  were  blotted  out." 


PROLOGUE  15 

We  are  seeking  now  to  write  this  epitaph  in  large 
characters  as  he  desired ;  and  that  its  message  may  lodge 
where  he  would  have  it  lodge,  in  the  hearts  of  men, 
where  the  springs  of  action  are  found,  we  are  constrained 
to  tell  the  story  of  his  life. 


A  COLLIER'S  WEAN 

He's  up  at  early  mornin',  howe'er  the  win'  may  blaw 
Lang  before  the  sun  comes  roun'  tae  chase  the  stars  awa' ; 
And  'mang  a  thoosand  dangers,  unkent  in  sweet  daylicht, 
He'll  toil  until  the  stars  again  keek  through  the  chilly  nicht. 

See  the  puir  wee  callan'  'neath  the  cauld,  clear  moon, 

His  knees  oot  through  his  troosers,  and  hit)  taes  oot  through 

his  shoon, 
Wadin'  through  the  freezin'  snaw,  thinkin*  owre  again 
How  happy  every  wean  maun  be  that's  no  a  collier's  wean. 

Oh,  ye  that  row  in  Fortune's  lap,  his  waefu'  story  hear. 
Aft  sorrows  no  sae  deep  as  his  hae  won  a  pitying  tear ; 
And  lichter  wrangs  than  he  endures  your  sympathy  hae 

won — 
Although  he  is  a  collier's,  mind  he's  still  a  Briton's  son. 
— WiNGATE,  the  Miner  Poet,  183 — . 

IN  the  year  1863,  in  an  old  mission  house  in  Cairo, 
the  man  whose  life  we  are  to  sketch  sat  imprisoned 
as  nurse  by  the  bedside  of  a  sick  wife.  As  the 
disease  was  smallpox  a  rigid  quarantine  was  enforced, 
and  to  while  away  such  leisure  as  his  ministrations  al- 
lowed him,  he  turned  back  in  thought  to  the  days  of 
his  childhood  and  wrote  down  in  shorthand  reminiscences 
of  his  past  that  otherwise  would  have  been  buried  in 
oblivion,  "  In  the  hope,"  as  he  said,  "  that  some  of  my 
children  may  read  these  notes  to  their  mother  when  their 
father  is  in  his  grave." 

17 


18  A  COLLIER'S  WEAN 

The  annals  thus  preserved  carry  us  at  once  to  a  spot 
remote  from  that  in  which  they  were  penned. 

We  turn  from  the  closely  built  sun-baked  city,  the 
oriental  Cairo  of  fifty  years  ago,  to  an  open  countryside 
in  East  Lothian  on  the  east  coast  of  Scotland,  where 
strong  winds  from  the  sea  make  the  blood  tingle  and 
nerve  a  man  for  action.  Eastward  the  Firth  of  Forth 
opens  out  to  the  German  Ocean,  and  the  Bass  Rock  and 
Berwick  Law  stand  out  as  natural  pyramids  against  the 
sky.  To  the  north  and  west,  beyond  a  stony  shore  and 
the  waters  of  the  Forth,  grey,  green,  or  blue  according 
to  the  weather,  are  the  hills  of  Fife,  with  an  occasional 
glimpse  on  a  clear  day  of  the  peaks  of  Perthshire  in  the 
distance.  Directly  west,  Edinburgh  and  Leith  mark  the 
limit  of  the  view,  in  smoke  by  day  and  in  city  lights  by 
night,  with  Arthur's  Seat  and  the  Pentland  Hills  visible 
amid  the  haze.  Southwards  no  hills  appear,  but  a  stretch 
of  rolling  country  where  fields  of  grain  or  pasture  are 
interspersed  by  woodland  and  dotted  with  villages. 

In  one  of  the  smallest  of  these,  Penston,  not;  to  be 
found  on  any  map,  on  April  30,  1833,  John  Hogg  was 
born.  In  this  region  he  had  his  home  till  he  reached 
the  age  of  twenty-three,  and  back  to  it  till  the  day  of 
his  death  memory  carried  him,  any  time  that  music,  the 
words  of  a(  Scotch  song,  some  familiar  proverb  of  his 
youth,  or  a  touch  of  the  broad  accent  of  the  countryside, 
set  the  old  chords  vibrating  and  transported  him  to  the 
land  of  his  birth. 

That  he  felt  a  certain  pride  in  his  origin  is  perfectly 
apparent.  He  had  the  pride  that  every  one  must  share 
who  has  come  from  such  a  home  as  his,  a  home  of  the 
kind  that  Burns  has  left  pictured  for  us  as  typical  of 
his  native  land,  pride  in  the  solid  worth  of  his  parents, 
and  in  the  virtues  which  in  a  humble  sphere  had  marked 


PARENTAGE  19 

them  out  as  belonging  to  the  noble  of  the  land,  clothing 
poverty  in  the  retrospect  with  a  sort  of  lustre,  wedding 
it  to  strength  and  courage,  and  crowning  it  with  grace. 
He  had,  too,  the  pride  that  a  strong  man  feels  in  diffi- 
culties and  hardships  so  met  that  instead  of  marring 
him  they  had  strengthened  his  moral  fibre  and  added 
a  keener  hopefulness  to  his  outlook  on  life. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  in  beginning  his  autobiography  as- 
sures us  that  "  Every  Scottish  man  has  a  pedigree," 
and  that  it  is  "  a  right  as  inalienable  as  his  pride  and  his 
poverty !  "  Strange  to  say,  the  Scot  who  sat  penning 
his  own  history  in  the  sick-room,  while  claiming  poverty 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  not  altogether  concealing  pride, 
seems  to  have  waived  the  first  of  his  "  inalienable  rights," 
the  right  of  pedigree.  He  traces  his  line  of  descent  no 
farther  back  than  to  his  father  and  mother,  John  Hogg, 
overseer  of  Penston  Colliery,  and  Mary  Richardson, 
daughter  of  a  small  country  farmer  and  mother  ere  she 
died  of  a  family  of  eight — six  stalwart  sons  and  two 
daughters.  John  was  third  of  the  family,  and  though 
bearing  the  same  name  as  his  father,  no  confusion  could 
occur,  for  his  father  was  known  in  the  district  as  "  the 
Jake."  Under  this  title  the  father's  memory  still  lingers 
among  the  oldest  inhabitants  as  the  "  benefactor  of  the 
miners  of  East  Lothian  and  Fife,"  the  man  who  ven- 
tilated the  mines  and  almost  doubled  their  output — "  No 
an  eddicated  man,  ye  ken,  but  jist  a  nateral  genius"; 
while  the  son  has  been  forgotten,  or  when  inquired 
about,  is  cursorily  dismissed  with  — "  Oh,  ay,  I  mind,  the 
Jake  had  a  son  that  went  out  to  Egypt  as  a  missionary." 

The  Jake's  genius,  though  it  may  have  increased  the 
prosperity  of  his  employers  and  the  comfort  and  safety 
of  his  fellow-workmen,  brought  to  himself  no  wealth. 
The  position  of  overseer  carried  with  it  the  right  to  free 


20  A  COLLIER'S  WEAN 

house  and  coal,  with  a  weekly  wage  of  four  or  five  dol- 
lars. But  there  were  periods  in  his  life  when  he  was 
reduced  to  working  as  a  common  collier.  The  diary 
represents  this  as  due  to  his  having  lost  his  position 
through  a  misunderstanding ;  but  those  who  worked  with 
him  declare  that  he  actually  resigned  it  on  two  separate 
occasions  for  some  reason  which  he  did  not  choose  to 
explain  to  his  fellow-workmen,  and  which  remained  a 
mystery,  as  he  continued  on  friendly  terms  with  the 
mine-owner.  Considering  the  sacrifice  involved,  the  rea- 
son must  have  been  a  strong  one. 

During  one  of  these  intervals  of  common  labour,  the 
demand  for  coal  being  so  small  that  the  daily  output  was 
kept  at  a  low  limit,  the  combined  wages  of  himself  and 
two  of  his  boys,  amounted  to  but  two  and  a  half  dol- 
lars a  week.    Yet  the  family  was  never  in  debt. 

"  Sobriety,  industry,  and  thrift,"  writes  the  son,  "  en- 
abled father  and  mother  to  rear  up  their  large  family 
well,  giving  them  an  education  suited  to  their  circum- 
stances, and  keeping  them  well-clothed,  while  others  had 
eaten  up  the  earnings  of  the  week  by  Tuesday  or  Wednes- 
day, and  were  almost  famished  ere  pay-day.  During  a 
long  strike  of  not  below  sixteen  weeks,  we  had  always 
food  enough,  and  were  even  able  to  lend  to  some  of  our 
friends  who  else  must  have  died  of  starvation." 

The  diary  happily  gives  some  description  of  the  frugal 
methods  of  living  that  made  it  possible  to  lay  up  against 
such  a  mischance. 

The  mother  and  children  gleaned  during  harvest  sea- 
son. By  using  their  gleaning  sparingly  and  treating 
wheaten  bread  as  a  luxury  to  be  doled  out  on  special 
occasions,  their  gleanings  were  sufficient  for  their  needs 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  year.  Their  bread  and 
scones  for  common  use  were  made  of  pea-flour.    Oatmeal 


PLAIN  FARE  21 

porridge  was  the  daily  breakfast  for  old  and  young  alike. 
Those  not  yet  doing  a  man's  work  dined  on  pease-bread 
and  sour  milk.  The  older  ones  had  for  dinner  during 
winter,  broth  with  a  little  meat  and  potatoes  and  pease- 
scones;  in  summer,  herring  and  potatoes,  potatoes  and 
milk,  or  chipped  potatoes  with  a  little  fat.  This  may 
sound  a  montonous  regime,  but  once  a  week  came  the 
day  of  feasting.  On  Sabbath  morning  the  whole  family 
sat  down  to  a  diet  of  "  fat  brose  "  which  was  greatly 
relished,  followed  by  tea  or  cofit'ee  of  which  each  was 
allowed  one  munificent  cup !  They  had,  however,  to 
live  on  the  memory  of  this  till  evening,  helped  by  a  lunch 
of  two  hard  biscuits  eaten  between  services. 

Tranent  United  Presbyterian  Church  was  three  miles 
distant.  The  father  was  an  elder  there,  and  he  and  his 
bairns  were  usually  seated  in  their  pew  before  most  of 
the  people  of  Tranent  had  begun  to  dress  for  church. 
The  boys  as  they  grew  older  joined  the  choir,  and  as 
the  presence  of  the  family  was  as  much  to  be  counted  on 
as  the  appearance  of  the  precentor  with  his  tuning-fork, 
or  the  beadle  bearing  the  pulpit-Bible,  survivors  in  the 
district  have  not  yet  forgotten  the  weekly  procession  of 
father  and  sons  marching  down  the  aisle,  some  of  them 
"  giants  in  Israel,"  and  none  stopping  in  growth  short 
of  six  feet.  It  may  be  left  to  the  imagination  to  picture 
the  appetite  of  a  growing  boy  by  five  o'clock  on  a  Sab- 
bath afternoon,  after  six  miles  of  walking  in  fresh  coun- 
try air  and  two  long  church  services,  through  which  he 
had  been  sustained  by  two  hard  biscuits.  Can  we  wonder 
that  the  dinner  that  followed,  of  fried  beef  or  roast  pork 
"  and  sometimes  a  haggis,"  followed  by  tea  and  "  fat 
scones,"  seemed  royal  fare,  and  its  memory  worth  trans- 
mitting to  children  yet  unborn  ? 

Frugality  affected  clothes  as  well  as  food,  so  that  John 


22  A  COLLIER'S  WEAN 

wore  no  clothes  but  of  his  mother's  making  till  well  on 
in  his  teens,  and  rarely  donned  a  suit  that  had  not  been 
already  worn  by  one  or  both  of  his  elder  brothers.  There 
was  one  glorious  exception,  however,  for  which  he  paid 
full  dear. 

"  Well  do  I  remember,"  he  writes,  "  getting  a  new 
velvet  jacket  all  to  myself.  Three  were  made  at  the 
same  time  for  the  three  eldest  of  us.  Mine  had  a  big 
hump  in  the  middle  of  the  back,  but  I  did  not  much 
care  for  that,  and  when  father  put  a  penny  into  my 
pocket  to  hansel  it,  I  was  as  happy  as  a  king.  But  I 
was  sick  of  velvet  jackets  before  I  got  through  them. 
When  George  outgrew  his  it  came  to  me,  and  then  I  wore 
James's,  and  when  they  were  past  wearing  in  daylight, 
they  were  worn  in  the  pit  until  they  had  entirely  changed 
their  colour." 

Coppers  were  a  rarity  and  worth  remembering,  and  it 
is  recorded  that  each  year  on  Hansel  Monday,  Mrs. 
Deans,  the  mine-owner's  wife,  gathered  the  children  at 
the  "  Great  House  "  and  gave  each  a  halfpenny.  When 
all  had  received  their  dole,  she  asked,  "  And  where  is 
the  good  scholar?  "  and  little  John  being  pushed  forward 
by  the  others,  received  an  extra  halfpenny  as  a  special 
reward  for  superior  scholarship,  and  was  once  more  as 
happy  as  a  king! 

In  considering  the  circumstances  that  governed  his  up- 
bringing, the  fewness  of  his  childhood's  pleasures,  its 
rigid  economies,  its  habitual  stint,  one  wonders  to  what 
extent  they  were  responsible  for  the  development  in  him 
of  certain  characteristics  that  marked  him  throughout 
life.  In  some  natures  their  effect  would  have  been  the 
strengthening  of  the  disposition  supposed  to  be  latent  in 
every  Scotsman  to  weigh  a  farthing  before  spending  it, 
and  to  keep  not  the  Sabbath  only,  but  everything  else 


TRAINING  AND  CHARACTER  23 

he  can  lay  his  hands  on.  In  him  the  effect  was  the  re- 
verse. It  was  as  though  he  were  in  revolt  against  the 
calculating  spirit  that  had  been  a  prime  necessity  in  those 
days  of  his  youth,  and  the  generosity  that  had  fretted 
against  the  barriers  that  poverty  set  up,  inclined  to  over- 
flow in  a  sort  of  joyous  license.  He  hated  anything 
shabby  or  scrimp.  Never  again  must  there  be  one  cup 
of  tea  apiece !  At  his  table  the  provision  must  be  such 
that  he  could  supply  any  number,  freely  and  fearlessly, 
leaving  still  enough  for  more.  He  inclined  always 
towards  a  choice  of  the  better  of  two  qualities,  with  the 
comfortable  philosophy  that  it  must  always  be  true 
economy  to  purchase  what  would  last  longer.  He  liked, 
too,  to  buy  in  quantity,  as  when  during  one  of  his  fur- 
loughs, in  need  of  a  new  toothbrush,  he  came  happily 
home  with  a  dozen  in  his  pocket,  as  they  would  be  sure 
to  come  in  useful,  and  it  saved  time  to  buy  a  number  at 
once! 

The  same  largesse  marked  his  giving,  and  he  was 
readier  than  most  to  lend,  though  he  suffered  for  it,  as 
lenders  must.  He  loved  to  surprise  a  friend  with  a 
cheque  when  times  were  hard  and  needs  pressing,  and 
the  gift  was  sure  to  be  a  handsome  one,  surprising  in  its 
amount  as  much  as  in  its  spontaneity,  given  with  keenest 
pleasure  and  in  the  firm  faith,  which  time  proved  not 
ill-founded,  that  "  our  children  will  never  be  allowed  to 
suffer  for  what  we  have  given  to  help  others." 

The  "  good  scholar,"  in  spite  of  the  superior  excel- 
lence which  had  been  so  munificently  rewarded  at  the 
"  Great  House,"  did  not  carry  into  after-life  golden  mem- 
ories of  his  schooldays.  According  to  his  own  account, 
though  by  the  age  of  four  he  had  learned  to  read  and 
spell  in  "  the  fourpenny,"  he  was  "  not  particularly 
bright,"  and  a  reputation  for  cleverness  which  crowned 


24  A  COLLIER'S  WEAN 

him  for  a  time  was  attributable  only  to  his  being  trained 
at  home  in  Bible  knowledge  and  the  Shorter  Catechism 
more  than  his  companions.  With  this  judgment  all  might 
not  agree.  There  are  many  amongst  us  who  have  con- 
quered the  land  that  lies  between  2  y,  2  and  12  X  12 
only  after  severe  toil  and  a  series  of  pitched  battles  ex- 
tending over  a  long  campaign.  Such  may  think  that  a 
child  who  could,  in  a  single  afternoon,  master  that  whole 
territory  so  as  to  have  it  forever  after  at  his  command 
must  have  had,  in  one  line  at  least,  native  ability  some- 
what beyond  the  average.  This  feat,  the  diary  tells  us, 
he  accomplished  at  the  age  of  five.  He  had  the  previous 
year  been  drafted  from  Penston  Infant  School  to  Glads- 
muir  Grammar  School,  and  there  his  troubles  began. 

Methods  of  education  have  altered  since  1837.  The 
problem  of  a  schoolmaster  in  those  days  has  been  stated 
thus,  "  Given  the  book,  the  boy,  and  the  rod ;  how  to  get 
the  first  into  the  second  by  means  of  the  third."  John 
having  fallen  heir  to  a  grammar-book  from  which  the 
first  part  had  been  torn,  the  rod  had  but  a  blank  to  work 
upon.  That  blank  it  drove  effectually  into  the  boy's 
mind.  As  the  rest  of  the  class  were  reviewing  the  book 
for  the  second  or  third  time,  few  explanations  were 
made.  The  schoolmaster  made  no  effort  apparently  to 
understand  his  difficulty,  and  to  his  parents  grammar 
was  a  science  unknown.  Often  he  would  learn  carefully 
from  memory  an  exercise  that  should  have  been  parsed, 
to  receive  in  consequence,  as  though  he  were  indolent  or 
worse,  the  punishment  that  had  become  his  daily  por- 
tion. With  childhood's  impotent  patience  he  bore  dumbly 
the  injustice,  but  the  shame  of  it  ate  into  his  soul. 

Relief  came  at  last.  At  the  age  of  nine  and  a  half, 
times  being  hard,  he  was  allowed  to  leave  school  and  join 
the  rank  of  workers.    The  rise  in  dignity  was  grateful 


IN  THE  PIT  25 

to  a  small  boy's  soul,  and  as  his  tasks  for  a  time  were 
light,  he  imagined  himself  in  a  land  of  liberty.  But  if 
at  first  a  miner's  lamp  seemed  a  badge  of  honour,  he  was 
not  long  in  learning  that  such  badges  may  be  dearly 
bought.  A  miner's  life  is  no  child's  play  even  now, 
and  the  primitive  conditions  of  seventy  years  ago  involved 
*'  toil  and  pain  ayont  conceivin'."  Before  many  weeks 
had  passed,  the  child  was  labouring  in  daily  weariness 
and  suffering  at  work  which  the  law  of  the  land  was 
soon  to  forbid  to  such  as  he.  Merely  to  reach  the  pit 
involved  hardship,  and  one  does  not  wonder  that  his 
memory  retained  vivid  pictures  of  rising  three  hours 
before  the  sun,  whose  face  he  saw  but  one  day  in  the 
seven,  stumbling  along  in  the  dark  with  heavy,  sharp 
implements  under  his  arm,  and  crouching  in  his  thin, 
patched  clothing  behind  hedges  to  shelter  from  the  cut- 
ting east  winds  of  winter ;  pictures,  too,  of  the  fearsome 
descent  of  120  feet  by  means  of  rope  and  ladder  when 
the  pit's  mouth  was  reached,  of  the  inclination  to  slip 
when  older  workers  impatiently  hurried  him,  and  of 
occasions  when  his  lamp  went  out,  leaving  him  in  mid- 
night darkness  to  grope  his  way  to  the  bottom  of  the 
shaft. 

But  these  things  were  trivial  as  compared  with  the 
labour  itself.  His  father  soon  became  overseer  of  two 
mines,  and  was  kept  so  busy  that  John  and  his  brother 
were  left  to  themselves.  "  Generally,"  he  says,  "  we 
did  the  work  of  two  men  " ;  but  in  truth  it  was  not  man's 
work  that  occupied  them,  but  work  fit  rather  for  beasts 
of  burden  and  now  relegated,  in  many  mines,  to  elec- 
tricity. The  men  broke  out  the  coal;  the  boys  dragged 
it  in  small  waggons  to  the  surface  up  a  steep  under- 
ground passage,  900  yards  long,  4  feet  wide,  and  for 
the  most  part  about  3  feet  high.    The  little  boy  went  in 


26  A  COLLIER'S  WEAN 

front,  a  chain  in  each  hand,  to  drag  and  guide  the  waggon 
on  its  wooden  rails,  often  knocking  his  head  or  grazing  his 
back  on  some  projecting  ridge  in  the  uneven  roof,  till 
the  slightest  touch  on  the  unhealed  sores  caused  the 
acutest  pain.  His  older  brother  James  pushed  the  waggon 
from  behind.  The  work  was  hard  on  the  temper.  The 
feeble  rails  were  apt  to  split  and  the  waggons  to  go  off 
the  line,  on  which  occasions  the  bigger  boy  relieved 
his  feelings,  as  big  boys  will,  by  throwing  the  blame 
on  the  younger,  whom  the  slightest  word  of  re- 
proof always  cut  to  the  quick,  making  him  miserable 
for  hours. 

He  did  not  bid  a  final  farewell  to  a  miner's  life  till  he 
reached  the  age  of  eighteen  and  had  spent  two  sessions 
at  the  University.  Years  of  this  period  were  passed 
largely  in  the  work  of  dragging  trucks,  now  in  one  pit  and 
now  in  another,  sometimes  for  what  was  considered  a 
good  wage  and  sometimes  for  the  merest  pittance.  In 
one  pit  the  workings  were  half  a  mile  from  the  shaft- 
bottom,  and  in  some  places  the  roads  very  steep. 

"  George  and  I,"  he  writes,  "  could  push  out  a  box 
with  considerable  facility,  but  for  one  of  us,  especially  at 
certain  places,  it  was  life-and-death  work.  As  we  had 
strong  men  to  compete  with,  and  there  were  only  two 
roads  and  fifty  putters,  we  were  often  followed  closely 
up  from  behind.  I  well  recollect,  at  the  distance  of 
seventeen  years,  how  I  used  to  push  with  my  head,  pull- 
ing myself  forward  by  seizing  the  rails  and  sleepers  with 
my  hands,  and  often  I  would  have  to  stand  for  a  few 
seconds  unable  to  move  an  inch  and  in  danger  of  the 
heavy  box  coming  back  on  me  and  running  me  over. 
...  I  always  blame  this  work  for  impeding  my  growth, 
as  for  three  years  at  this  time  I  did  not  grow  in  height 
by  a  single  hair's-breadth.  I  became  very  stout,  how- 
ever, and  capable  of  enduring  much  fatigue  without  suf- 
fering from  it." 


WORK  AND  PLAY  27 

This  power  he  carried  with  him  through  life,  and  it 
stood  him  in  such  good  stead  as  a  missionary  that  he 
learned  to  look  upon  the  hard  training  of  his  youth  as 
a  providential  preparation  for  the  work  that  was  to 
follow. 

He  won  from  his  work  also  another  compensating 
blessing  that  gave  more  immediate  satisfaction — the 
added  lustre  shed  by  toil  on  intervals  of  leisure.  Of 
one  summer  which  specially  impressed  him  as  "  a  time 
of  slavery,"  he  writes: 

"  And  yet  this  was  in  many  respects  the  happiest  time 
of  my  life.  No  sooner  had  v/e  got  home,  than  after 
washing  off  the  coal  dust  from  our  faces,  we  seemed  to 
wash  away  all  our  cares,  and  no  one  who  saw  us  after- 
wards playing  with  ball  or  kite  and  running  races  on 
the  village  green,  would  imagine  that  we  had  anything 
to  do  but  play  all  the  day  long.  It  was  with  difficulty 
that  father  could  get  us  in  at  nine  o'clock  for  family 
prayers,  and  even  after  that  an  excuse  was  often  found 
for  getting  a  little  extra  time  for  more  play.  But  oh, 
how  sweet  was  sleep,  when  wakening  in  the  morning 
I  found  that  I  had  still  a  few  minutes  before  the  ordinary 
time  for  rising!  How  quietly  would  I  slip  under  the 
clothes  again,  lest  I  should  awake  my  elder  brother,  that 
I  might  have  another  five  minutes !  What  supreme 
luxury  to  wake  up  and  find  it  was  Sabbath  morning,  and 
oh !  what  horror,  to  dream  it  was  Sabbath  and  wake  to 
find  it  was  some  other  day !  " 

So  far  it  has  been  but  the  life  of  a  child  we  have  been 
sketching,  a  life  therefore  for  the  most  part  irrespon- 
sible and  unself-conscious,  its  course  shaped  by  the  will 
of  others,  as  the  river's  by  the  contour  of  the  land,  its 
colour  decided  by  the  life  and  thought  of  those  around, 
as  the  colour  on  the  surface  of  still  waters  by  the  verdure 
on  their  margin  or  the  sky  above.    It  is  true  that  a  dis- 


?8  A  COLLIER'S  WEAN 

tinctive  personality  was  already  revealing  itself.  The 
intensity  of  the  child's  absorption  now  in  games  and 
now  in  work,  his  ambition  not  to  be  outdone  even  by 
competing  men,  and  his  extreme  sensitiveness  to  praise 
and  blame,  are  all  suggestive  of  the  man  full  grown.  But 
as  yet  he  accepted  his  lot  unthinkingly, — his  happiness 
play,  his  horizon  the  night's  rest. 

A  time,  however,  comes  in  the  life  of  every  man,  when 
he  awakens  to  a  sense  of  personality,  of  a  life  to  live 
that  is  his  own,  and  when  he  begins  to  shape  that  life 
consciously  from  within,  instead  of  passively  allowing 
it  to  fall  into  whatever  mould  external  influences  would 
shape  for  it.  The  awakening  may  be  sudden  and 
startling,  or  as  gentle  a  process  as  the  dawn.  The  es- 
sential for  a  strong  life  is  that  it  be  thorough,  and  that 
there  be  no  second  sleep.  In  the  present  case  the  event 
was  precipitated  by  an  accident  that  occurred  before  the 
boy  completed  his  twelfth  year. 

One  morning  in  January,  1845,  his  brother  James  and 
he  were  down  the  mine  together  and  alone.  Their  task 
was  to  break  in  pieces  and  convey  up  the  shaft  a  huge 
mass  of  coal  of  several  tons  weight.  It  proved  tough 
and  unmanageable.  They  were  endeavouring  by  driving 
in  wedges  to  break  it  into  two,  when  there  came  an  un- 
expected crash,  and  before  John  could  save  himself,  half 
of  it  had  fallen  away,  knocking  him  down  and  pinning 
him  to  the  ground.  His  brother  rushed  for  help,  while 
he  lay  in  the  dark  alone.  In  a  few  minutes  nine  or  ten 
men  gathered  and  succeeded  with  a  mighty  effort  in 
slightly  raising  the  fallen  block,  while  one  of  their  num- 
ber dragged  from  underneath  the  injured  boy,  who  was 
then  laid  in  a  waggon  and  wheeled  amid  excruciating 
pain  to  the  pit-bottom. 

His  mother  being  worn  and  weak  from  the  prolonged 


AN  ACCIDENT  29 

and  anxious  nursing  of  a  sick  child,  John  on  reaching 
home  felt  bound  to  hide  his  suffering  to  the  best  of  his 
ability.  In  this  effort  he  attained  an  unfortunate  success 
that  came  near  to  costing  him  lameness  for  life;  for  the 
doctor  judged  from  the  mild  account  of  the  patient's  con- 
dition given  by  a  messenger  that  no  fracture  had  oc- 
curred, and  that  the  desired  visit  might  await  his  con- 
venience. In  the  hours  that  intervened  the  broken  thigh 
swelled  to  such  enormous  extent  that  the  task  of  setting 
became  almost  impracticable.  The  consequence  was  a 
limb  shortened  and  bent,  and  though  in  time  he  outgrew 
the  defect  so  that  he  carried  through  the  years  no  painful 
reminder  of  his  accident,  he  faced  for  months  the  proba- 
bility of  a  cripple's  life. 

For  six  weeks  all  movement  was  forbidden,  and  during 
this  period  of  confinement  there  came  to  him  a  revelation 
of  the  delights  to  be  found  in  a  world  accessible  to  him, 
yet  still  unexplored,  the  world  of  books  that  he  was  ever 
after  to  find  so  alluring.  The  day  of  cheap  story  books 
had  not  dawned,  and  so  it  came  to  pass  that  he  read  his 
Bible  almost  from  cover  to  cover,  and  feasted  his 
imagination  on  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress  and  the 
Arabian  Nights.  He  came  back  from  his  imprisonment, 
as  he  says,  "  a  changed  boy."  New  thoughts  seethed  in 
his  brain  and  new  ambitions  possessed  him.  His  life  no 
longer  fell  into  the  same  groove  as  that  of  his  associates. 
As  soon  as  he  could  use  a  crutch  he  was  once  more  on  the 
school  bench,  not  as  a  galley-slave,  but  as  one  rejoicing 
in  a  new  lease  of  life  and  opportunity.  Books  were 
henceforth  his  pastime.  When  he  was  again  able  to  enter 
the  mines,  study  proved  a  more  tempting  bait  in  leisure 
hours  than  the  old  games  on  the  village  green,  and  even- 
ing classes  were  eagerly  taken  advantage  of  which  had 
hitherto  been  attended  with  reluctance. 


30  A  COLLIER'S  WEAN 

To  such  good  purpose  did  he  use  what  margins  of 
time  were  at  his  command,  that  during  the  next  three 
years  he  attained  "  a  pretty  extensive  knowledge  of 
geography,  grammar,  and  arithmetic,  went  through  a 
course  of  Chambers's  in  mensuration  of  surfaces  and 
solids,  navigation  and  trigonometry,  studied  algebra  as 
far  as  quadratic  equations,  Euclid's  elements  to  the  end 
of  the  third  book,  sundry  books  on  astronomy,  Joyce's 
Dialogues,  Goldsmith's  England;  in  Latin,  the  Rudi- 
ments, Dilectus,  Cornelius  Nepos,  four  books  of  Caesar's 
Gallic  War,  four  books  of  the  ^neid,  and  the  greater 
part  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses; "  and  in  Greek  secured 
"  a  smattering  of  the  grammar,  and  read  most  of  the 
four  Gospels." 

Meanwhile  in  the  silence  of  his  soul  a  struggle  was 
going  on  which  was  eventually  to  decide  the  whole  trend 
of  his  future.  The  atmosphere  of  his  home  was  so 
strongly  religious  that  even  as  a  little  boy,  "  in  frock  and 
daidly,"  he  had  been  visited  by  many  a  thought  about 
God  and  salvation.  He  had  been  stirred  by  sermons 
preached  occasionally  for  the  children  of  the  church. 
He  dimly  hoped  himself  a  Christian.  But  a  time  had 
now  come  when  no  dim  hope  would  satisfy  him.  He 
must  reach  certainty. 

"  I  was  about  fourteen  years  old,"  he  writes,  "  when 
a  dear  little  sister,  the  pet  of  all  the  family,  was  sud- 
denly cut  off  at  the  early  age  of  three.  This  event,  along 
with  the  reading  of  Doddridge's  Rise  and  Progress,  and 
a  sermon  on  Phil,  iii,  i8,*  set  me  a-praying  as  I  had 
never  prayed  before  for  the  salvation  of  my  soul.  On 
my  way  to  work  in  the  morning  I  would  pray,  and  when 
I  could  be  apart  during  the  day  I  would  kneel  down  and 

*  "  Many  walk  of  whom  I  told  you  often  and  now  tell  you  even 
weeping  that  they  are  the  enemies  of  the  cross  of  Christ." 


JOINS  THE  CHURCH  31 

pray,  and  often  in  the  evening  I  would  come  out  and, 
kneeling  down  behind  the  hedge,  would  lay  open  my 
heart  in  long  earnest  prayer  to  God  for  my  conversion. 
My  great  delight  at  that  time  was  in  mingling  with  the 
older  people  and  hearing  them  converse  on  practical 
religion,  and  when  on  coming  home  from  church  the 
conversation  took  a  religious  turn,  I  was  always  an  eager 
listener;  but  if  it  diverged  into  a  more  worldly  strain 
I  would  feel  pained,  and  often  fall  back  or  push  ahead, 
in  order  to  indulge  in  undisturbed  meditation  on  the  sub- 
jects on  which  the  minister  had  been  preaching." 

He  at  last  gained  the  assurance  he  desired,  and  early 
in  1848,  along  with  his  brother  George,  was  received 
into  the  communion  of  the  Church.  "  I  have  since,"  he 
remarks,  "  in  thinking  of  my  religious  experiences  during 
this  period,  lifted  up  the  prayer :  '  Oh  that  it  were  with 
me  as  in  the  days  of  old.' " 


II 

STUDENT  DAYS 

I  say  that  man  was  made  to  grow^  not  stop. 
That  help  he  needed  once  and  needs  no  more, 
Having  grown  but  an  inch  by,  is  withdrawn. 
For  he  hath  new  needs  and  new  helps  to  these. 
This  imports  solely,  man  should  mount  on  each 
New  height  in  view. 

— Robert  Browning. 

Tenui  musam  meditamur  avena — "  We  cultivate  litera- 
ture upon  a  little  oatmeal." 

— Motto  proposed  by  Sydney  Smith  for  the 
"  Edinburgh  Review." 

IN  November,  1849,  the  boy  laid  his  pit  clothes  aside 
and  was  enrolled  as  a  student  in  Edinburgh  Uni- 
versity. The  door  of  opportunity  could  not  have 
opened  for  him  at  a  more  favourable  juncture.  Both 
mind  and  soul  w^ere  straining  upward,  and  he  was  pre- 
pared to  throw  all  his  energies  into  the  new  life. 

His  older  brother  James,  who  had  entered  the  Uni- 
versity a  year  before  him,  fully  intended  to  become  a 
minister.  Whether  John  had  made  the  same  resolve  is  not 
apparent,  but  it  was  the  dearest  wish  of  his  parents' 
hearts  that  he  should  do  so.  It  was  the  strength  of  this 
wish  that  had  nerved  them  for  the  sacrifice  involved 
in  sending  to  Edinburgh  and  supporting  at  college  two 
of  the  ablest  breadwinners  of  the  family.  The  ministry 
was  regarded  with  extreme  veneration  by  the  Scottish 
peasantry  of  the  time,  and  as  a  sacred  calling,  possessed 

32 


EDINBURGH  IN  184d  33 

for  them  a  glamour  that  seemed  to  throw  into  shadow 
the  possibilities  for  Christlike  service  latent  in  other 
lines  of  life.  This  attitude  of  the  community  in  general, 
the  desire  of  his  parents  in  particular,  and  the  example 
of  his  brother,  must  have  combined  to  form  an  influence 
to  which  the  feelings  of  the  boy  were  in  a  condition  to 
give  quick  response.  His  ideas,  however,  were  still  nebu- 
lous. The  aims  and  ideals  that  were  the  passion  of  his 
after-life  came  to  him  not  as  a  sudden  revelation  but  as 
a  slow  growth.  He  tells  us  plainly  that  he  did  not 
realise  at  this  time  that  what  had  recently  occurred  in 
the  recesses  of  his  heart  made  him  debtor  to  the  world, 
and  a  natural  tendency  to  reserve  in  the  expression  of 
his  deepest  feelings  warred  with  any  impulse  to  share 
the  new  joy  that  had  come  into  his  life. 

It  was  a  great  day  in  the  life  of  the  country  lad  when 
he  first  went  up  to  college.  A  Scottish  mining  village 
with  its  shrewd  and  hardy  intelligence  was  no  un- 
friendly soil  for  a  growing  mind.  But  under  the  quicken- 
ing influences  of  an  old  university  and  in  a  city  whose 
very  stones  spoke  of  a  storied  past,  the  young  life  would 
unfold  its  faculties  with  a  new  vigour. 

In  the  Scottish  metropolis  he  was  entering  a  wider 
world  than  he  had  yet  known.  It  was  1849,  when  men 
still  heard  echoes  of  that  "  year  of  revolution  "  which 
had  shaken  every  capital  in  Europe.  Edinburgh,  too, 
had  felt  the  impact  in  the  Chartist  Riots  of  1848,  show- 
ing that  the  class  to  which  the  young  student  belonged 
was  rising  to  political  consciousness.  But  what  would 
likely  appeal  more  strongly  to  a  lad  coming  from  a  de- 
vout village  home  would  be  the  ecclesiastical  associations 
of  the  city.  In  Edinburgh  the  Scottish  Churches  hold 
their  annual  assemblies,  an  event  always  of  great  interest 
to  Scotsmen,  but  especially  so  in  those  days  when  Scot- 


34  STUDENT  DAYS 

land  had  just  emerged  from  one  of  the  great  crises  of 
her  religious  history  in  the  "  Disruption  "  of  the  national 
Church, 

The  University,  however,  with  its  keen  intellectual 
life,  was  the  natural  centre  of  the  young  student's  inter- 
ests. At  the  time  when  he  matriculated  Edinburgh  Uni- 
versity enjoyed  a  European  fame  through  the  eminence 
of  three  of  its  professors — Hamilton,  Aytoun,  and  Wil- 
son ("Christopher  North").  Within  its  halls  were 
gathered  the  pick  of  Scotland's  youth,  drawn  from  many 
a  thrifty  home.  One  of  his  fellow-students  was  Henry 
Calderwood,  a  Peebles  lad  who  five  years  later  crossed 
swords  in  the  field  of  philosophy  with  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton himself,  and  was  destined  to  succeed  him  in  the 
professorial  chair.  But  the  life  of  the  Scottish  under- 
graduate was  a  hard  discipline — plain  living  and  high 
thinking.  "  As  a  training  in  self-dependence,"  says 
Froude,  speaking  of  Carlyle's  student  days  in  Edin- 
burgh, "  no  better  education  could  be  found  in  these 
islands." 

The  two  brothers  lived  in  a  small  cheap  room  in  the 
house  of  a  nice  motherly  body  in  Potterrow.  Their 
home  village  being  not  far  from  Edinburgh,  their  mother 
still  attended  to  their  laundry,  and  the  session  was  short- 
ened for  them  by  occasional  visits  from  father  or  brother 
bringing  fresh  linen  and  samples  of  their  mother's  baking. 
The  home-faces  were  the  more  welcome  that  the  boys 
at  this  time  seem  to  have  been  comparatively  friendless. 
The  older  brother,  James,  was  quiet  and  shy.  The 
younger,  who  had  more  popular  gifts,  was  beset  by  a 
fear  of  being  despised  for  his  former  occupation,  an 
unworthy  fear,  of  which  he  learned  later  to  be  ashamed, 
but  which  meanwhile  shut  him  in  from  the  companion- 
ship he  yet  craved  and  needed.     He  could  not  forget 


Old  University 


Coijyrighted.  Judges,  Ltd. 

The  Castle 


Cnliyrinlitfd.   .TmlKC's,    Ltd. 

View  of  Edinburgh  from  Salisbury  Crags 
COLLEGE    DAYS    AT    EDINBURGH 


PRONUNCIATION  AND  ACCENT  35 

the  pit  in  which  he  had  dug,  and  of  which  his  peeled 
knuckles  were  a  constant  reminder.  His  broad  Scotch 
dialect  marked  his  humble  rank,  and  he  expected  Peter's 
fate  if  he  mingled  with  the  crowd.  He  was  ready  to 
imagine  supercilious  smiles  and  read  in  them  the  taunt : 
"Thou  art  a  common  collier;  thy  speech  bewrayeth 
thee." 

In  consequence  he  acquired,  as  he  tells  us,  unsociable 
habits  that  he  had  afterwards  great  difficulty  in  over- 
coming. But  he  also  acquired  an  unusually  pure  accent, 
an  interest  in  phonetics,  and  a  habit  of  close  attention 
to  minute  variations  in  pronunciation  that  may  have 
been  the  secret  of  his  power  in  later  days  to  talk  Arabic 
"  like  an  Egyptian."  For  no  sooner  had  he  become  sensi- 
tive to  his  inability  to  talk  like  his  fellows,  than  with 
characteristic  determination  he  set  himself  to  correct  his 
defects.  He  attended  an  elocution  class  for  several  ses- 
sions, and  with  a  swing  of  the  pendulum  from  one  ex- 
treme to  the  other,  became  for  the  time  being  so  critical 
of  all  utterance  that  he  could  hardly  find  a  man  in  the 
kingdom  whose  speech  was  not  faulty  in  some  respect! 
Broad  Scots  was  dear  to  him  to  the  end  of  his  days,  and 
he  would  use  it  upon  occasion,  but  the  impure  mixture 
so  largely  current  continued  distasteful  to  his  fastidious 
ear,  even  when  his  hypercritical  stage  was  in  the  distant 
past. 

His  whole  college  course  was  marked  by  a  tendency 
to  attempt  a  crowded  programme,  while  his  tastes  being 
too  varied  for  any  subject  to  fail  of  attractiveness,  he 
could  not  agree  to  content  himself  with  a  mere  pass- 
grade  in  certain  classes  in  order  to  specialise  in  others. 
In  reading  he  travelled  far  afield,  and  as  the  habits  of 
the  recluse  dropped  from  him,  missionary  and  debating 
societies,  the  Young  Men's  Fellowship  Association  and 


36  STUDENT  DAYS 

Sabbath  School  work  all  claimed  a  growing  share  of  his 
attention. 

Whatever  he  took  up  he  could  not  but  take  up  with 
energy,  so  that  already  in  the  university  student  we  see 
the  man  of  after  years,  who  with  a  tendency  to  complete 
absorption  in  whatever  matter  he  had  in  hand,  combined 
an  extraordinary  capacity  for  cramming  his  fire  with  irons 
and  keeping  them  all  hot. 

This  could  only  be  achieved  by  one  who  had  learned 
the  value  of  time  and  the  art  of  taking  care  of  spare 
moments.  This  art  he  was  conscious  of  possessing,  and 
he  traced  its  origin  to  the  necessity  of  working  down 
in  the  mines  during  the  long  summer  vacations  of  '50 
and  '51^  when  he  was  hungry  for  study  and  anxious 
to  follow  out  a  special  scheme  of  work  that  the  brothers 
had  drawn  out  for  themselves  in  accordance  with  some 
hints  received  from  one  of  his  professors.  For  to  his 
honour  be  it  said^  however  much  he  disliked  his  peeled 
knuckles  and  the  stigma  that  might  attach  to  him  as  a 
miner,  such  feelings  did  not  interfere  with  its  ready 
return  to  the  old  labour,  for  his  own  support  and  aid  to 
the  family  funds,  and  it  was  not  until  he  was  able  to  get 
a  more  lucrative  post  as  teacher  that  he  bade  final  adieu 
to  life  in  the  pit. 

During  these  summers  the  intervals  spent  above  ground 
were  insufficient  for  the  study  undertaken.  When  work- 
ing as  under-manager  and  rail-layer  he  had  occasional 
spare  hours,  but  these  were  too  few,  and  he  was  some- 
times engineman  and  sometimes  common  collier  with  no 
opportunities  of  leisure.  In  any  case  there  were  odd  min- 
utes to  be  utilised,  and  every  scrap  of  time  being  needed, 
he  would  draft  at  night  lessons  to  be  conned  down 
the  mine.  So  drafted,  much  could  be  accomplished  by  an 
occasional  glance  without  hindrance  to  the  work  in  hand, 


THE  HOME  IN  jVIACMERRY  37 

and  sometimes  the  paper  or  book  was  set  up  in  a  niche 
in  the  irregular  wall  of  the  dark  passage,  a  miner's  lamp 
so  arranged  that  its  light  fell  on  the  open  page,  and  the 
task  mastered  to  the  tune  of  the  blows  of  his  pick  on 
the  coal. 

Shadows  that  soon  gathered  and  deepened  made  the 
vacations  of  the  year  1850  stand  out  in  sunny  outline 
in  the  memory  of  those  who  shared  in  their  pleasures. 
The  family  were  living  at  the  time  in  Macmerry,  a  tiny 
village  that  straggles  along  the  Haddington  highroad  at 
four  miles  distance  from  that  town.  The  home  was  a 
low  cottage,  one  of  a  row,  with  the  customary  white- 
washed stone  walls,  red-tiled  roof,  and  small-paned  win- 
dows of  houses  of  its  class,  but  surprisingly  roomy  if 
one  entered  expecting  to  find  only  the  usual  "  butt  and 
ben."  It  contained  two  good-sized  bedrooms,  and  be- 
tween them  the  long,  low-ceilinged,  stone-paved  kitchen 
in  which  the  family  was  wont  to  forgather.  One  window 
opened  on  the  road  and  on  the  opposite  wall  another 
looked  out  across  fields  towards  the  sea.  At  the  farther 
end  was  the  wide-open  fireplace  which,  however  far 
from  ideal  to  modern  ideas  of  cookery,  cannot  be  equalled 
for  a  certain  generous  warmth  it  has  the  magic  power 
of  diffusing  into  the  hearts  of  the  circle  it  attracts,  and 
for  the  air  of  cosy  comfort  it  bestows  upon  the  room 
it  ornaments.  For  the  rest,  there  was  the  usual  deal 
table  and  wooden  chairs,  "  grandfather's  clock,"  sturdy 
wooden  bedstead  and  patchwork  coverlet,  kitchen  dresser 
with  rows  of  plates  and  shining  tins,  and  all  the  other 
et  ceteras  of  a  clean,  comfortable,  Scottish  kitchen.  In 
a  certain  corner  stood  a  barrel  used  for  flour,  and  en- 
throned upon  this  on  certain  occasions  sat  a  little  girl, 
who,    no    longer    little   but    with    many    silver    threads 


38  STUDENT  DAYS 

amongst  the  black,  still  delights  to  revive  those  treasured 
memories. 

Though  the  boys  had  their  time  carefully  planned,  the 
plan  seems  to  have  included  recreation,  and  the  favourite 
recreation  was  music,  which  was  as  engrossing  a  passion 
as  study.  Into  the  big  kitchen  gathered  on  Saturday 
evenings  all  the  music-loving  souls  of  the  district,  spe- 
cially the  young  men  and  women.  Impromptu  concerts 
followed,  the  father  playing  the  fiddle,  James  a  small 
violin,  John  the  violincello,  or  sometimes  by  way  of 
variety  the  flute  or  accordion,  while  all  joined  in  song. 
Their  store  of  Scotch  songs  was  endless,  songs  pathetic 
and  songs  quaint  and  comic,  the  latter  often  given  off  in 
dramatic  style  with  suitable  gestures,  and  parenthetical 
remarks  thrown  in  on  occasion  to  accentuate  the  nonsense 
or  point  a  harmless  joke  at  any  one  present  whose  head 
the  cap  might  fit.  They  usually  ended  up  with  some 
reels  and  strathspeys,  when  the  little  girl  would  climb 
down  off  her  barrel  and  join  other  little  ones  in  dancing 
to  the  music. 

On  the  last  Saturday  of  the  winter  vacation,  when 
they  had  reached  this  point  in  the  usual  programme,  the 
family  were  surprised  by  their  mother  catching  infection 
from  the  children  and  dancing  a  hornpipe  for  them  to  the 
tune  of  the  fiddles,  an  art  she  had  learned  to  perfection 
when  a  girl.  But  behind  the  merry  mood  there  were 
thoughts  in  the  mother's  heart  that  none  had  guessed, 
that  would  have  darkened  the  days  for  all  of  them  had 
they  known. 

When  the  boys  returned  to  college,  she  stood  out  in 
the  road  on  the  cold  January  morning  watching  them 
for  the  last  time  till  they  rounded  a  corner  and  were 
lost  to  sight,  and  meeting  a  neighbour  as  she  returned 
to  the  house,  she  remarked :  "  Puir  laddies,  I'll  never  see 


DEATH  OF  HIS  MOTHER  39 

them  again."  She  had  been  fighting  disease  ever  since 
the  death  of  her  Httle  girl,  and  in  a  few  weeks  suc- 
cumbed rather  suddenly,  after  acute  suffering,  but  with 
a  mind  at  peace  and  a  Christian's  fearlessness  for  the 
future. 

When  the  brothers  returned  in  the  summer  of  '52  to 
their  motherless  home,  they  were  greeted  by  other 
troubles  that  had  followed  in  the  wake  of  their  bereave- 
ment. Trade  was  dull.  Mr.  Cuthbertson,  of  whose  mine 
their  father  was  manager,  was  bankrupt,  and  had  lost 
along  with  his  own  money  all  the  savings  of  his  man- 
ager's family.  In  an  effort  to  regain  his  footing  he  had 
taken  into  partnership  a  man  of  difficult  temper,  hard 
to  work  under.  The  father,  discouraged,  mooted  emi- 
gration. John,  at  his  suggestion,  wrote  to  a  friend  in 
America,  and  receiving  an  encouraging  answer,  began 
to  dream  dreams  that  turned  his  studies  into  the  line  of 
geology  and  engineering.  He  had  the  prospect  of  a 
fairly  lucrative  position  as  a  start,  and  thoughts  of  rising 
to  worldly  prosperity  grew  alluring.  But  the  further 
he  drifted  from  the  idea  of  the  ministry,  the  more  did 
the  father  swing  back  from  his  momentary  weakness. 
To  see  his  boy  in  the  pulpit  would  be  a  greater  privilege 
than  to  see  him  wealthy.  He  gave  up  the  thought  of 
emigrating,  decided  to  fight  his  battle  through  on  Scot- 
tish soil,  and  prayed  in  secret  that  his  boy's  ambitions 
might  return  to  their  previous  channel. 

The  boy  felt  the  silent  pressure  of  his  father's  long- 
ings, but  for  a  time  his  day-dream  still  allured  him. 
James  now  entered  the  Divinity  Hall,  which  opened 
every  summer  for  two  months  only,  the  entire  curriculum 
stretching  over  five  years.  The  leaven  of  his  weekly 
letters   fermented  in  the  younger  brother's  mind.     He 


40  STUDENT  DAYS 

began  to  be  restless  and  ill  at  ease.  At  last  the  silent 
conflict  reached  a  climax.  A  night  came  when  he  felt 
that  he  could  not  sleep  till  the  question  of  his  future 
was  decided.  When  he  had  delivered  his  maiden  speech, 
a  missionary  address  in  Tranent  Church,  his  father  had 
borne  him  so  much  on  his  soul  that,  unable  to  face  the 
nervous  strain  of  listening  in  the  pew,  he  had  spent  the 
time  on  his  knees  at  home  praying  for  his  boy,  that  all 
danger  of  public  failure  might  be  averted.  But  now  the 
father  lay  unconscious,  while  graver  issues  were  at  stake 
and  momentous  questions  were  being  faced  and  settled  at 
his  very  side.  In  the  small  hours  of  the  morning  a  choice 
was  made  from  which  John  never  wavered,  and  knowing 
his  father's  heart,  he  could  not  keep  from  him  till  day 
dawned  news  that  would  give  him  such  great  happiness. 
They  were  alone  together,  sharing  a  bed.  He  awoke 
him  and  announced  the  decision  that  closed  to  him  the 
door  of  secular  life  forever  and  sealed  his  dedication 
to  the  ministry.  It  was  the  father's  turn  now  to  lie 
awake — not  in  anxious  thought  or  prayerful  conflict,  but 
in  the  joy  of  answered  prayer  and  the  glow  of  a  great 
gratitude. 

Next  morning  the  boy's  books  on  geology  and  en- 
gineering were  replaced  by  Whateley's  Logic,  Thomson's 
Laws  of  Thought,  Lewis's  History  of  Philosophy,  and 
the  notes  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  lectures.  A  few 
weeks  later,  having  funds  enough  for  one  session's  neces- 
sities, he  rejoined  his  brother  in  Edinburgh  to  continue 
his  university  course. 

It  has  been  said  to  be  the  experience  of  teachers  of  phi- 
losophy that  students  who  excel  in  classics  or  mathematics 
rarely  show  metaphysical  ability.  This  rule  did  not  hold 
good  in  the  present  case.  A  prizeman  in  Latin  and 
Greek  and  attaining  distinction  in  mathematics,  he  yet 


A  MOMENTOUS  DECISION  41 

but  narrowly  missed  prizes  in  Mental  as  well  as  in  Nat- 
ural Philosophy;  and  to  the  end  of  life  a  new  philo- 
sophical volume  had  more  fascination  for  him  than  a 
novel,  and  could  happily  beguile  for  him  the  tedium  of 
missionary  travel. 

There  now  occurred  an  interval  of  fifteen  months, 
during  which  he  taught,  first  in  Forfar  and  then  in 
Rothesay,  to  secure  funds  for  completing  his  course. 
When  at  length  he  returned  to  Edinburgh,  and  after 
two  months  spent  at  the  Divinity  Hall  re-entered  the 
University  in  November,  1853,  for  his  fourth  and  last  ses- 
sion, he  was  still  forced  to  spend  half  of  each  day  in 
teaching. 

Private  study  had  been  carried  on  meanwhile  by  sheer 
force  of  will.  For  months  his  daily  programme  had  in- 
cluded seven  hours  of  teaching,  and  oversight  of  boys, 
whether  at  work,  at  meals,  or  at  play,  from  6  a.m.  till 
10  P.M.  Lights  being  extinguished  promptly  at  ten,  the 
only  way  to  secure  time  for  his  own  use  had  been  by 
early  rising.  He  had  consequently  risen  for  study  at 
four  every  morning.  It  was  long  before  he  regained  the 
power  to  sleep  past  that  stroke  of  the  clock,  no  matter 
how  little  he  had  slept  earlier  in  the  night.  Violent 
headaches  ensued,  which  threatened  to  become  chronic, 
and  when  sorrow  followed  in  the  wake  of  overwork,  he 
lost  sleep  entirely  for  a  fortnight  and  felt  as  if  his  brain 
were  giving  way. 

The  family  prospects  had  greatly  brightened  since  the 
days  when  emigration  seemed  their  one  door  of  hope. 
Not  only  were  the  three  oldest  sons  now  making  their 
own  way  in  the  world,  but  the  father  had  secured  a 
good  situation  near  Dunfermline  at  a  higher  wage 
than  had  ever  yet  been  granted  him,  and  as  he  speedily 


42  STUDENT  DAYS 

established  in  Fife  the  same  reputation  he  had  won 
for  himself  in  East  Lothian,  all  promised  fair  for  the 
future. 

But  no  sooner  had  John  returned  to  Edinburgh  than 
shadows  began  to  gather.  His  brother  James  had,  like 
himself,  been  straining  every  nerve  to  the  accomplish- 
ment of  one  great  aim.  With  his  brother,  the  absorbing 
ambition  of  life  was  "  to  carry  the  Gospel  to  the  heathen." 
He  had  ofifered  for  the  foreign  field  and  was  under 
formal  appointment,  though  with  years  before  him  still 
of  special  preparation  which  he  was  striving,  under  many 
hindrances,  to  secure.  In  his  case,  intellectual  powers  of 
no  mean  order,  intense  devotion,  and  indomitable  pur- 
pose were  lodged  in  a  weak  frame.  A  breakdown  came 
at  last,  and  consumptive  tendencies  developed  rapidly. 
Instead  of  remaining  with  his  younger  brother  in  Edin- 
burgh, he  was  forced  to  go  home,  and  the  younger 
brother  knew  that  he  went  home  to  die. 

This  of  itself  might  have  made  the  winter  of  1853  the 
saddest  he  had  yet  known,  but  blow  followed  upon  blow. 
The  session  had  not  advanced  far  when  he  was  suddenly 
summoned  to  nurse  his  father  through  an  attack  of  acute 
bronchitis  from  which  he  never  rallied.  The  son  in  after 
life  had  ftw  equals  as  a  nurse,  and  the  father  clung  to 
him  in  his  sufferings  and  was  uneasy  if  he  left  his  side. 
The  tie  between  them  was  a  specially  tender  one.  For 
five  days  and  nights  the  nurse  remained  faithful  to  his 
post,  but  the  danger  then  seemed  over  and,  not  daring 
to  absent  himself  longer  from  his  teaching,  he  unwillingly 
returned  to  Edinburgh.  He  was  followed  three  days 
later  by  news  of  his  father's  death. 

The  event  was  viewed  by  all  as  a  public  calamity.  He 
was  only  forty-five  years  of  age,  and  had  already  won 
his  way  into  the  hearts  of  the  community.    His  employers 


DEATH  OF  FATHER  AND  BROTHER   43 

evinced  their  appreciation  of  him  by  showing  the  greatest 
consideration  to  the  family,  who  felt  dazed  by  the  blow. 
They  offered  to  George,  the  second  son,  the  position  his 
father  had  filled,  which  he  gladly  accepted;  but  George 
had  a  family  of  his  own  to  support.  James,  the  eldest, 
was  on  his  deathbed.  Eliza,  the  only  daughter,  was  sud- 
denly stricken  down  also  with  disease  of  the  thigh-bone, 
which  kept  her  in  bed  for  a  year.  John  took  Andrew, 
the  youngest,  back  to  Edinburgh  with  him,  becoming  re- 
sponsible henceforth  for  his  board  and  education,  and 
an  aunt  undertook  the  charge  of  the  others. 

Three  months  later  James  passed  away.  John  had 
been  with  him  a  fortnight  before  the  end,  and  some 
things  then  whispered  to  him  by  the  failing  voice  left  an 
indelible  mark  on  his  life.  Nearly  fifteen  years  later  he 
wrote  of  him  to  an  aunt  who  was  nearing  death :  "  If 
you  see  James  before  me,  tell  him  that  the  remark  which 
he  made  to  me  before  he  died — '  I  have  done  nothing  for 
Christ — nothing!  Oh,  if  I  had  only  strength  left  to 
preach  but  one  sermon ! ' — has  never  been  forgotten  and 
has  been  as  good  as  many  a  sermon  to  the  brother  to 
whom  it  was  addressed  and  through  him  to  hundreds  in 
Egypt."  In  his  diary  he  writes  in  the  same  strain.  He 
speaks  feelingly  of  his  brother's  high  character,  his  intel- 
lectual power,  the  wide  range  of  his  literary  knowledge, 
his  heroism  under  excruciating  pain  which  was  of  chronic 
recurrence  from  childhood,  and  the  intensity  of  his  con- 
secration to  the  mission  cause  for  which  he  had  hoped 
to  live.  The  younger  brother  felt  that  it  was  James  who 
had  broken  up  the  way  before  him,  that  but  for  him  he 
might  still  have  been  labouring  in  a  coal  mine,  and  that 
he  was  accordingly  pledged  to  fill  the  place  left  vacant  by 
his  death.  From  this  view  he  never  swerved.  The  for- 
eign field  was  henceforth  definitely  his  goal. 


44  STUDENT  DAYS 

Of  his  life  at  the  Divinity  Hall  the  diary  gives  no  de- 
tails, merely  telling  that  he  greatly  enjoyed  it  and  that 
there  grew^  out  of  it  prized  friendships,  one  of  vi^hich 
incidentally  shaped  his  future.  This  does  not  mean,  how- 
ever, that  the  Divinity  Hall  played  an  unimportant  part 
in  his  preparation  for  the  work  to  which  he  was  after- 
wards to  devote  himself.  The  five  professors  who  formed 
its  staff  were  a  singular  group  of  men  to  be  found  at  the 
same  time  in  the  same  institution,  and  that  an  institution 
belonging  to  so  small  a  denomination  as  the  United  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  Scotland.  One,  Dr.  Eadie,  was  a 
man  of  wide  reputation  for  massiveness  of  learning.  All 
were  men  of  sound  scholarship  and  deep  piety,  and  these 
gifts  were  blended  with  rarer  qualities  of  heart  and  soul 
that  rendered  each  in  some  distinctive  way  a  striking  and 
attractive  personality. 

The  tone  of  religious  feeling  among  the  students  seems 
to  have  been  on  a  level  worthy  of  the  teachers  provided 
for  them.  They  were  men  who  all  year  had  been  facing 
the  problems  of  life,  some  of  them  working  at  trades  to 
supply  the  wherewithal  for  their  support,  others  teaching 
and  others  in  mission  work.  Having  worked  hard  for 
the  privilege  of  entrance,  they  were  in  little  danger  of 
becoming  satiated  and  weary  of  lectures.  Familiarity 
with  the  strain  of  teaching  and  preaching  made  a  seat 
on  the  student's  bench  a  luxury.  How  they  regarded  the 
privilege,  and  in  what  spirit  they  gathered,  is  revealed 
by  the  fact  that  many  were  in  the  habit  of  coming  to 
Edinburgh  a  week  before  the  session  began,  to  meet  for 
prayer  in  each  other's  lodgings.  Five  sessions,  however 
short,  spent  in  this  atmosphere,  with  such  congenial  com- 
panions, and  under  the  teaching  of  professors  of  the  type 
we  have  described,  could  not  fail  of  lasting  influence  on 
a  nature  already  attuned  to  high  issues. 


AT  THE  DIVINITY  HALL  45 

Change  of  country  cuts  deep  into  a  life.  Friendships 
must  not  only  have  been  well  rooted,  they  must  already 
have  achieved  a  somewhat  sturdy  growth,  if  they  are  to 
live  past  that  cleavage  and  attain  further  development 
during  years  of  separation.  With  a  few  of  the  students 
such  ties  were  formed,  but  these  friends  have  long  since 
journeyed,  as  he  has  journeyed,  to  a  better  land,  and 
from  them  we  can  gain  no  light  upon  the  life  we  are 
trying  to  trace.  One  friend  still  survives,  however.  Rev. 
James  Henry  of  Melbourne,  Australia,  one  of  the  closest 
and  most  valued  of  all. 

"  I  cannot  tell  you  why,"  he  writes  in  a  recent  letter, 
"  but  somehow  I  fell  in  love  with  him  at  first  sight,  and 
the  love  has  not  in  the  least  abated.  We  agreed  to  live 
together  economically  in  Edinburgh,  occupying  one 
room,  .  .  .  and  I  was  very  happy  in  his  companionship. 
We  studied,  debated,  wrestled,  sometimes  even  to  tem- 
pestuous glee.  I  felt  him  my  superior  in  many  ways. 
.  .  .  We  maintained  a  regular  and  loving  correspond- 
ence to  the  end,  and  when  I  received  word  of  his  death 
I  went  to  my  room  and  wept  like  a  child.  With  a  bright 
and  winning  manner — in  those  early  days  playful — he 
was  absolutely  devoted  to  the  person  and  kingdom  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Amongst  all  the  young  men 
I  ever  knew,  he  had  the  purest  spirit — all  his  thoughts 
were  pure.  ...  I  can  truly  say  that  not  a  day  has  passed 
without  my  thinking  of  him." 

After  their  student  days  had  ended,  these  friends  met 
on  only  three  occasions.  Their  last  meeting  was  fol- 
lowed by  twenty  years  of  unbroken  separation,  bridged 
only  by  occasional  letters,  and  by  twenty-five  years  more 
of  utter  silence,  the  slender  bridge  having  fallen  at  the 
touch  of  death.  When  one  reflects  on  these  things  the 
simple  words  with  which  our  quotation  closes  become 


46  STUDENT  DAYS 

luminous — the  most  eloquent  tribute  friend  could  pay 
to  friend. 

The  students  were  not  left  entirely  to  their  own  re- 
sources while  the  Hall  was  not  in  session.  Tasks  were 
assigned  them  that  involved  periodic  appearance  before 
Presbytery,  and  they  were  under  the  superintendence  of 
some  minister  in  their  district.  This  arrangement  led  to 
a  close  friendship  between  our  future  missionary  and  the 
man  through  whom  his  steps  were  led  towards  Egypt. 
Dr.  Logan  Aikman,  who  superintended  the  United  Pres- 
byterian students  residing  in  Edinburgh,  was  secretary 
of  the  Scottish  Society  for  the  Conversion  of  the  Jews. 
Letters  came  to  him  from  Rev.  Dr.  Philip,  missionary  to 
the  Jews  in  Alexandria,  proposing  the  establishment  of 
a  large  Protestant  College  in  that  city,  and  urging  that 
with  an  experienced  teacher  in  charge,  such  an  in- 
stitution must  achieve  rapid  success.  Dr.  Aikman 
and  other  members  of  his  Society  favoured  the  scheme, 
and  at  once  thought  of  John  Hogg  as  the  man  for  the 
place. 

The  proposal  proved  attractive  to  him,  offering  as  it 
did  an  apprenticeship  in  foreign  mission  work.  To  be 
the  better  equipped  for  the  sphere,  he  at  once  threw  him- 
self impetuously  into  the  study  of  Italian  and  Arabic, 
and  devoured  every  book  on  Egypt  on  which  he  could 
lay  hands.  He  relinquished  a  good  position  as  teacher 
of  Classics  and  French  in  July,  1855,  as  the  new  project 
was  to  be  launched  before  the  year  closed. 

Meanwhile,  men  interested  and  friendly  had  formed 
themselves  into  committees  in  Alexandria,  Edinburgh, 
and  Glasgow  to  aid  in  raising  funds,  and  Dr.  Philip  came 
to  Scotland  to  engage  in  the  same  work.  But  a  radical 
difference  of  policy  soon  became  apparent. 

To  Dr.   Philip's  mind  all  effort   was   useless   unless 


APPOINTED  TO  EGYPT  47 

equipment  was  secured  of  a  type  to  attract  the  eyes  of 
Alexandria.  Thousands  of  pounds  must  therefore  be 
immediately  gathered  that  the  college  might  from  its 
start  outrival  the  schools  of  the  Jesuits.  "  Do  this,"  he 
urged,  "  and  in  a  year  the  college  will  be  self-support- 
ing." The  canny  Scots  looked  askance  at  so  daring  a 
plan.  The  Church  had  not  yet  learned  to  think  in  thou- 
sands; why  alienate  its  sympathy  by  talking  of  so  large 
a  sum?  Why  launch  an  enterprise  on  a  scale  beyond 
all  guarantee  of  future  support?  They  decided  to  run 
no  risk  of  debt :  to  start  a  small  school  and  improve  its 
equipments  when  its  success  had  become  assured.  Dr. 
Philip,  however,  continued  to  advocate  his  own  plan, 
and  people  were  confused  and  alienated  by  conflicting 
statements.  Indifference  took  the  place  of  enthusiasm,  and 
it  was  late  in  the  following  year  before  funds  had  been 
collected  sufficient  to  send  the  missionary-apprentice 
forth  to  start  even  the  smallest  venture. 

He,  meanwhile,  chafing  at  delay,  had  agreed  to  occupy 
temporarily  the  somewhat  tempting  position  of  classical 
master  in  George  Watson's  Hospital,  an  old  and  famous 
Edinburgh  school,  and  was  able  when  that  engagement 
closed  to  take  a  fourth  session  at  the  Divinity  Hall.  By 
that  time  the  way  had  opened  for  him.  After  a  few 
simple  preparations  had  been  made,  he  met  for  the  last 
time  with  the  various  committees  connected  with  the 
enterprise,  and  returned  to  Halbeath  to  say  good-bye  to 
his  home  friends.  Those  whose  parting  blessing  he  would 
most  have  coveted  had  not  lived  to  see  their  ambitions  for 
him  fulfilled,  but  they  would  be  as  near  to  him  in  Egypt 
as  at  home.  For  the  rest,  he  expected  a  happy  reunion 
with  them  when  three  short  years  would  pass,  and  pro- 
tected by  the  merciful  veil  that  hides  the  future  from 
our  eyes,  was  able  to  wave  to  them  cheerfully  his  last 


48  STUDENT  DAYS 

farewell.  On  the  17th  of  November,  1856,  with  his  heart 
full  of  grateful  memories,  high  hopes,  and  eager  pur- 
poses, he  set  out  from  Edinburgh  on  his  eastward  jour- 
ney, to  begin  a  new  life  and  attempt  new  tasks  in  the 
old  Land  of  the  Pharaohs. 


Ill 

SERVING  HIS  APPRENTICESHIP 

Yes,  here,  in  this  poor,  miserable,  hampered,  despica- 
ble Actual,  wherein  thou  even  now  standest,  here  or  no- 
where is  thy  Ideal :  work  it  out  therefrom ;  and  working, 
believe,  live,  be  free. 

— Carlyle:  Sartor  Resartus. 

THE  journey  to  Egypt  was  full  of  novelty  and 
pleasure  to  the  young  Scotsman.  He  spent  days 
of  solitary  roaming  in  London  and  Paris,  and 
during  the  thirty  hours  of  confinement  in  the  train  that 
carried  him  to  Marseilles,  was  too  interested  in  seeing 
France  to  think  of  wearying.  A  sea  voyage  was  also  a 
new  experience.  As  always,  he  threw  himself  heartily 
into  the  life  of  the  company  on  board,  making  many 
acquaintances  and  leading  in  the  music  and  games. 

But  the  eventful  moment  of  the  journey  was  its  close. 
All  but  himself  were  bound  for  the  Farther  East,  and 
when  he  parted  with  them  in  the  harbour  at  Alexandria, 
they  were  still  chatting  around  the  breakfast  table  in 
the  dining-saloon — his  own  countrymen,  talking  his  own 
language,  and  looking  as  natural  as  if  on  British  soil. 
Five  minutes  in  a  small  boat  brought  him  into  the  midst 
of  a  world  as  remote  as  though  in  the  interval  he  had 
wandered  back  across  centuries  in  a  dream.  He  had 
read  every  page  on  Egypt,  past  or  present,  that  had 
come  within  his  reach,  but  here  was  the  reality — "  those 
clamouring  groups  of  donkey-boys,  custom  house  agents, 
turbaned  heads,  veiled  faces,  humpbacked  camels,"  seem- 

49 


50         SERVING  HIS  APPRENTICESHIP 

ing  as  different  from  his  former  vague  conceptions  as  a 
page  out  of  the  Arabian  Nights  from  a  daily  newspaper. 
The  bewildering  strangeness  of  the  new  environment 
stamped  that  moment  indelibly  upon  his  memory  and 
imagination,  and  in  after  years  he  could  call  it  back  at 
will,  the  sights  he  saw  and  the  emotions  they  awakened 
returning  to  him  vivid  and  real  as  the  present. 

A  Maronite  priest  had  been  sent  to  the  steamer  to 
conduct  him  ashore  and  to  bring  him  to  Dr.  Philip's 
home.  Here  he  remained  for  six  months,  and  had  his 
first  experiences  of  the  mission-life  of  which  he  had  been 
dreaming.  The  contrast  between  the  real  and  the  antici- 
pated must  have  been  to  him  at  times  as  bewildering  as 
that  first  moment  upon  the  wharf  of  Alexandria. 

From  the  world's  point  of  view  his  new  tasks  proved 
unworthy  of  the  sacrifices  they  involved,  and  even  to  the 
young  man  himself,  whose  standards  were  not  worldly, 
the  new  life  must  have  been  in  many  ways  a  disappoint- 
ment. "  A  Protestant  College  for  Egypt "  was  the  lure 
that  had  first  turned  his  face  towards  Alexandria,  and 
though  the  scheme  had  changed  and  dwindled,  such  high- 
sounding  words  becoming  rare  on  the  lips  of  its  pro- 
moters, he  came  to  the  field  still  hoping  for  a  success 
that  would  revive  the  dream,  and  prove  the  original 
project  not  Utopian.  His  eager  zeal  was  ready  for  great 
sacrifices  in  a  great  cause.  The  actual  demand  of  life 
was  for  great  sacrifices  in  a  small  one.  In  a  week's  time 
he  had  settled  down  to  the  teaching  of  six  boys  in  a 
dark,  damp  room,  in  the  basement  of  Dr.  Philip's  dwell- 
ing. Sixteen  was  the  largest  number  reached  in  the  first 
six  months,  three  of  them  the  missionary's  children, 
towards  whom  he  had  to  act  as  private  tutor  in  English 
and  Latin,  often  having  charge  of  them  even  out  of 
school    hours.     Later,    during    two    whole    months    the 


A  DISCOURAGING  START  51 

schoolboys  numbered  two !  For  a  young  man  with  abili- 
ties not  untested,  accustomed  to  conduct  large  classes  and 
to  do  it  admirably,  to  continue  month  after  month  de- 
voting his  time  and  energies  to  a  mere  handful  of  pupils, 
heterogeneous  and  fluctuating,  must  have  required  all 
the  Scotch  grit  and  dogged  perseverance  that  he  could 
command. 

There  was  another  element  in  the  situation  even  more 
trying  to  his  mettle — the  keen  disappointment  of  Dr. 
Philip  at  the  form  the  enterprise  had  taken.  His  hope 
of  raising  funds  for  a  college  had  miscarried,  and  in 
face  of  his  earnest  remonstrances,  the  committees,  like 
Israel  at  Kadesh-barnea,  had  decided  to  "  go  forward," 
without  what  he  considered  essential  for  success.  The 
young  man,  in  agreeing  to  lead  the  forlorn  hope,  had 
joined  the  ranks  of  those  who  rejected  his  counsel,  and 
so  viewed,  his  action  seemed  to  savour  of  offence. 

There  was  a  lack  of  warmth  in  the  welcome  accorded 
to  the  newcomer  even  on  the  day  of  his  arrival,  and  his 
daily  presence  in  Dr.  Philip's  house  kept  the  subject 
open  and  the  sore  raw.  As  time  went  on  the  atmosphere 
grew  heavy  with  a  disapproval  too  insistent  to  be  easily 
ignored.  There  was  doubtless  no  intentional  unkindness, 
but  almost  every  evening,  and  often  during  the  day, 
either  to  himself  or  in  his  presence  to  some  passing  trav- 
eller, the  prophecy  was  repeated  that  the  school  would 
never  succeed.  Probably  the  older  man,  in  thus  relieving 
his  feelings,  failed  to  consider  the  inevitable  effect  on 
his  companion  of  such  dreary  iteration,  after  hours  of 
drudgery  and  close  confinement  in  a  dingy  schoolroom; 
but  to  an  ardent  and  nervous  temperament,  keenly  sensi- 
tive to  the  attitude  of  those  around  him,  the  ordeal  must 
often  have  proved  peculiarly  severe.  How  he  bore  him- 
self it  is  impossible  now  to  discover,  but  there  was  cer- 


52         SERVING  HIS  APPRENTICESHIP 

tainly  no  weakening  of  the  fibre  of  his  resolution,  for 
he  continued  to  work  from  sixteen  to  eighteen  hours  a 
day,  giving  what  time  was  not  consumed  in  teaching  to 
equipping  himself  more  thoroughly  for  his  post,  by  the 
study  of  Italian  and  Arabic. 

Friendly  sympathy  came  to  him  suddenly  from  an  unex- 
pected quarter.  Rev.  Thomas  McCague  and  Rev.  Gulian 
Lansing,  missionaries  of  the  United  Presbyterian  Church 
of  America,  the  former  in  Cairo  and  the  latter  in  Da- 
mascus, were  the  guests  of  Dr.  Philip  for  a  few  days. 
One  evening  when  as  usual  the  young  teacher  was  buried 
in  his  books  in  his  own  room,  he  was  surprised  by  a 
knock  at  his  door,  and  found  the  two  visitors  anxious  to 
have  a  talk  with  him,  more  free  and  confidential  than 
had  been  possible  at  the  family  table.  They  had  seen 
his  little  school,  had  learned  authoritatively  of  its  certain 
doom,  but  were  interested  to  hear  more  at  first  hand, 
both  of  it  and  of  him.  The  three  were  entirely  con- 
genial, and  a  memorable  evening  followed,  interesting  as 
a  link  in  a  chain  of  circumstances  that  finally  bound  the 
Scotsman  to  a  country  not  his  own.  Before  the  visit 
ended  he  had  cordially  invited  Mr.  Lansing  to  share 
quarters  with  him  in  Alexandria,  should  the  future  deal 
kindly  with  castles  they  had  been  building  in  the  air. 

In  the  month  of  June,  to  the  relief  of  all  concerned, 
the  school  was  transferred  to  a  large  palace,  much  the 
worse  for  wear,  which  the  local  committee,  after  long 
search,  had  succeeded  in  renting.  It  was  a  dilapidated, 
rambling  building,  through  which  whistled  strong  winds 
from  the  sea  that  rolled  but  twenty  paces  off.  No  fear 
of  crowding  here !  One  room  alone  measured  eighty 
feet  in  length !  But  it  was  in  the  midst  of  the  Moham- 
medan quarter,  the  nearest  English  residence  a  mile  and 
a  half  distant,  and  the  homes  of  his  former  pupils  too 


NEWS  FROM  HOME  53 

far  away  for  them  to  follow  him  to  his  new  abode.  It 
was  here  that  for  two  months  he  had  but  two  pupils 
to  cheer  him,  by  which  his  "  faith  and  patience  were 
sorely  tried ; "  here,  too,  that  he  kept  working  day  and 
night  till  he  "  had  fairly  mastered  the  most  difficult  part 
of  the  two  languages  most  needed,"  after  which  he  de- 
voted himself  chiefly  to  Italian,  in  which  he  soon  made 
opportunities  of  preaching  and  public  prayer. 

"  I  like  it  very  much,"  he  writes  to  a  friend,  "  only 
it  is  rather  lonely,  especially  when  a  fellow  is  a  little 
out  of  tune,  and  I  have  had  either  indigestion  or  cold 
or  something  to  bother  me  almost  all  the  time." 

Through  the  long  months  he  had  waited  vainly  for 
letters  from  home.  He  belonged  to  a  family  who,  though 
warmly  attached  to  each  other,  had  an  unconquerable 
habit  of  silence,  with  which  his  life-long  wrestle,  in  the 
case  of  all  but  one,  proved  almost  futile.  Till  the  last, 
writing  remained  to  the  rest  a  weary  cross,  and  their 
first  letter,  which  seems  to  have  reached  him  about  this 
time,  was  written  only  when  events  had  occurred  that 
seemed  to  demand  a  chronicler.  Thus  into  five  minutes 
were  crowded  for  him  the  tidings  that  his  brothers  had 
decided  to  emigrate,  William  had  already  started,  Robert 
had  married,  the  home  was  broken  up,  its  furniture  sold 
by  auction,  and  his  "  wee  darling  sister  "  alone  in  Edin- 
burgh preparing  to  support  herself  by  learning  the  dress- 
makers' trade.  It  was  an  overwhelming  experience.  He 
seemed  robbed  of  all  his  brothers  at  one  blow.  He  re- 
called his  light-hearted  good-bye  and  his  last  glimpse 
of  them  "  till  the  resurrection  morning."  Yet  his  heart 
was  with  them  in  their  ambition  for  larger  opportuni- 
ties, and  it  was  the  change  in  his  sister's  life  only  that 
he  could  not  brook.     She  was  but  sixteen  years  old  and 


54         SERVING  HIS  APPRENTICESHIP 

alone  in  a  city.  He  invited  her  to  join  him  in  his  big 
empty  house,  and  she  joyfully  acceded  to  the  proposal. 
He  wrote  to  a  friend  to  engage  her  passage,  and  to  her- 
self in  great  spirits,  making  suggestions  for  her  comfort 
on  the  journey,  and  giving  hints  as  to  her  outfit. 

A  lengthy  silence  followed,  and  at  last  a  vessel  from 
Southampton  bore  into  port,  with  the  name  of  Miss 
Hogg  on  its  list  of  passengers. 

"  Immediately  on  receiving  this  news,"  he  writes,  "  I 
rushed  down  to  the  harbour,  took  a  boat,  and  rowed 
out  through  a  very  heavy  swell,  with  quaking  heart,  to 
the  steamer  lying  at  anchor.  With  trembling  steps  I 
mounted  the  gangway.  What  a  galling  disappointment 
when  the  stewardess  informed  me  that  '  Miss  Hogg  * 
had  gone  ashore,  and  was  by  this  time  off  by  rail  to 
Suez,  as  she  was  on  her  way  to — India!" 

Meanwhile  the  "  Miss  Hogg  "  he  had  hoped  to  wel- 
come was  still  in  Scotland,  and  letters  at  length  reached 
him  explaining  her  mysterious  delay.  The  Society  for 
the  Conversion  of  the  Jews  had  handed  over  its  four 
scattered  mission  posts  to  the  United  Presbyterian 
Church  of  Scotland.  That  Church  had  decided  on  a 
policy  of  concentration :  Algiers  was  to  be  strengthened ; 
the  other  stations,  including  Alexandria,  abandoned. 
His  Scottish  friends  expected  hi"s  little  school,  though 
under  separate  management,  to  share  in  the  general  fate, 
as  many  of  its  supporters  would  transfer  their  interest 
to  Algiers.  Should  its  funds  fail,  its  teacher  would 
doubtless  be  withdrawn.  Plainly  this  was  no  time  to 
bring  a  little  mistress  to  bachelor  hall. 

The  disappointment  was  twofold:  uppermost  the  re- 
linquished dream  of  sheltering  his  sister  in  his  empty 
home;    underneath,    another   hope  grown    fainter, — the 


THE  AMERICAN  MISSION  HOME  55 

hope  of  settling  in  Alexandria  as  an  ordained  missionary, 
sent  out  by  his  own  Church.  The  events  he  pondered 
so  regretfully  had  forged  a  second  link  in  the  chain  that 
was  to  bind  the  Scotsman  to  America. 

And  soon  other  links  formed,  strong  and  visible. 
Bachelor  hall  became  an  American  Mission  home,  and 
he  a  member  of  the  household !  For  while  one  castle 
of  dreams  had  dissolved  at  a  breath,  another  built  in 
the  spring  as  airily,  took  shape  before  his  eyes  in  solid 
fact.  Rev.  Mr.  Lansing,  appointed  by  the  American 
(United  Presbyterian)  Mission  to  extend  its  work  to 
Alexandria,  came  as  invited  to  share  his  lonely  quarters. 
Mrs.  Lansing  soon  followed  him,  took  over  the  reins 
of  housekeeping  from  clumsy  hands,  and  began  to  breathe 
an  air  of  home  into  the  barren  ruin.  Thus  1857,  a  year 
that  had  opened  upon  test  and  strain  and  disappointment, 
let  its  curtain  fall  upon  days  of  cheerful  labour  in  an 
atmosphere  of  utmost  good-fellowship. 

Now,  for  the  first  time,  the  missionary-apprentice 
tasted  that  rare  kinship  so  characteristic  of  the  mission 
circle  in  a  foreign  land,  where  so  often  friendships  strong 
as  brotherhood  seem  to  grow  up  like  mushrooms  in  a 
night,  and  yet  like  hardy  saplings  withstand  all  the  ele- 
ments (of  no  mean  force)  that  would  make  for  dissolu- 
tion. It  is  a  peculiar  bond,  less  eclectic  than  ordinary 
friendships,  more  spiritual  than  oneness  of  blood,  an 
inspiration  in  work,  and  an  unfailing  support  in  sorrow, 
yet  withal  so  usual  (thank  God!)  on  the  foreign  field 
that  its  occasional  absence  strikes  on  Christian  sensibili- 
ties with  the  shock  of  a  deformity,  as  though  mission- 
aries had  a  monopoly  of  the  golden  rule,  or  official  im- 
munity from  failure  and  sin. 

In  the  present  case  the  tie  was  strengthened  by  con- 
geniality of  tastes  and  temperament.     Mr.  Lansing  was 


56         SERVING  HIS  APPRENTICESHIP 

an  eager  missionary,  genial  and  buoyant, — a  scholarly 
man,  racy  in  narrative,  keen  and  quick-witted  in  argu- 
ment, of  rapid  decision  and  steady  will,  with  a  personal 
charm  that  added  a  Tovable  quality  even  to  his  faults. 
The  two  were  strongly  attracted  to  each  other  from  the 
first,  and  though  in  later  years  they  laboured  in  different 
parts  of  the  field  and  often  took  the  most  opposite  views 
of  mission  policy,  the  tie  between  them  continued  till 
death,  unimpaired. 

It  is  interesting  to  watch  the  give-and-take  of  the 
months  that  followed.  We  find  Mr.  Lansing  installed 
as  school  teacher  when  overwork  has  brought  his  com- 
panion to  the  verge  of  breakdown.  Later  the  tables 
are  turned,  and  Mr.  Lansing's  Sabbath  service  is  handed 
over  to  the  younger  man,  that  it  may  be  conducted  in 
Italian  instead  of  Arabic.  Some  other  simple  task  they 
undertake  by  turns.  When  a  girls'  school  of  two  years' 
standing  becomes  American  Mission  property,  it  is  the 
Scotsman  who  organises  and  superintends  its  Sabbath 
School ;  and  before  long  there  is  a  united  Sabbath 
School  for  the  two  missions,  all  remaining  to  the  morn- 
ing service  together.  Indeed,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
exaggerate  the  harmony  of  the  relations  that  existed,  and 
when  in  the  spring  of  1859,  the  Scotch  committees,  bur- 
dened with  debt,  relinquished  their  school  to  the  Amer- 
icans, it  is  probable  that  few  on  the  spot  realised  that 
any  change  of  ownership  had  occurred. 

The  condition  of  Egypt  had  been  critical  during  this 
period.  Echoes  of  the  Indian  Mutiny  and  Jedda  mas- 
sacres had  excited  the  Moslems  to  emulation,  and  a  gen- 
eral slaughter  of  Christians  was  confidently  expected. 
Though  the  date  of  the  event  was  fixed,  and  the  rumour 
received  daily  corroboration  in  the  hostile  attitude  of  the 
populace,  the  mission  party  declined  to  take  refuge  with 


A  THREATENED  MASSACRE  57 

their  English  friends.  "  We  did  not  like  to  shew  the 
people  our  fear,"  the  diary  explains,  "  and  we  thought 
it  more  Christlike  to  remain  at  our  labour." 

The  time  came,  and  the  missionaries  had  just  sep- 
arated for  the  night,  when  there  was  a  violent  and  pro- 
longed knocking  at  their  outer  door.  From  an  upper 
window  they  saw  a  large  crowd  collected,  with  torches, 
guns,  and  swords.  Assuredly  the  hour  had  come.  They 
had  decided  to  await  silently  the  tragedy  that  must  follow 
as  soon  as  the  door  should  give  way,  when  to  their  sur- 
prise the  rabble  suddenly  desisted.  The  flare  of  a  torch 
revealed  the  centre  of  interest,  their  servant  in  the 
grip  of  the  police,  who  had  found  him  lantern-less  in 
the  streets  after  canonical  hours.  The  offender  had  ex- 
pected his  merciful  masters  to  protect  him  from  the  law, 
and  the  noisy  and  excited  mob  were  but  aiding  his  cause, 
in  neighbourly  fashion,  with  the  aimless  volubility  at- 
tendant on  action  and  inaction  in  the  East. 

The  means  by  which  quiet  was  at  length  restored  in 
Egypt  show  that  the  despot  has  an  occasional  advantage 
over  his  law-abiding  brothers  of  the  West.  Moved  by 
the  appeals  of  the  consuls,  the  Khedive,  who  understood 
his  country,  faced  the  Sheikhs  of  Islam.  "  I  am  not  gov- 
ernor of  Jedda,"  he  said,  "  I  am  Said  Pasha,  Viceroy  of 
Egypt.  Should  there  be  any  uprising  against  the  Chris- 
tians, your  heads  will  be  cut  off."  The  men  valuing 
their  heads  perhaps  over  highly,  peace  settled  on  the 
troubled  land. 

And  what  of  a  Protestant  College  for  Egypt?  Did 
three  years'  labour  bring  the  project  nearer  fulfilment? 
Did  it  cast  fresh  light  upon  the  enterprise?  A  school 
had  been  firmly  established.  Even  in  the  old  palace 
some  success  was  gained ;  and  when  the  reign  of  fear  was 
over,  more  central  premises  soon  doubled  its  enrolment, 


58         SERVING  HIS  APPRENTICESHIP 

which  in  spite  of  a  new  charge  for  instruction,  never  fell 
again  below  a  monthly  average  of  thirty.  But  there  was 
one  significant  feature  in  the  situation.  The  school  re- 
flected the  cosmopolitan  character  of  the  city  in  which 
it  was  planted.  It  gathered  pupils  from  every  nation, 
and  out  of  forty-six  enrolled  in  five  months,  only  five 
were  Egyptians.  We  find  this  fact  commented  on  twenty- 
five  years  later :  "  This  alone  ought  to  have  suggested 
that  if  this  was  the  projected  Protestant  College,  its 
missioH  might  be  a  wide  one,  but — like  the  Suez  Canal 
of  a  later  date — it  would  be  of  little  value  to  Egypt 
itself." 

The  toiler,  however,  had  not  yet  read  the  true  sig- 
nificance of  a  fact  he  deplored.  It  was  only  when,  as 
a  missionary,  opportunity  to  travel  gave  him  a  vision  of 
the  Egypt  of  the  Egyptians,  that  his  early  dream  dis- 
solved to  make  room  for  wiser  plans. 

Till  then  it  buoyed  him  up  through  strenuous  plodding 
toil.  As  a  teacher  he  saw  little  beyond  Egypt's  gateway, 
the  capital  and  Suez  being  the  only  other  points  visited. 
His  doings  at  both  places  illustrate  the  character  of  the 
man. 

He  went  to  Cairo  in  January,  1858,  on  the  verge  of 
a  collapse.  He  had  continued  to  work  sixteen  to  eighteen 
hours  a  day  all  through  the  enervating  heat  of  summer 
and  autumn,  seeing  no  English  face  except  on  Sabbath 
or  when  the  arrival  of  a  mail-boat  led  him  to  the  post- 
office.  At  last  his  brain  had  rebelled.  Sleep  deserted 
him,  and  violent  headaches  and  toothache  ensued.  It 
was  in  this  condition  that  Mr.  Lansing  despatched  him 
to  Cairo  to  secure  the  rest  he  needed.  But  though  the 
sufferer  was  not  conscious  of  having  secured  a  moment's 
sleep  for  a  fortnight,  he  immediately  plunged  into  the 
most  violent  course  of  sight-seeing.     He  remarks,  with 


SUEZ  EXCURSION  59 

apparent  surprise,  that  for  a  few  days  he  grew  worse 
under  this  severe  regime.  But  his  eager  nature,  strong 
will,  and  sound  constitution  carried  him  through.  He 
most  undeservedly  recovered,  and  soon  returned,  re- 
freshed and  invigorated,  to  resume  the  duties  of  the 
school. 

His  holiday  trip  to  Suez  was  equally  arduous.  In 
1859,  during  the  short  Easter  vacation,  a  friend's  kind 
loan  of  a  Nile-boat  had  occasioned  a  river  journey  to 
Cairo,  where  he  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  mission 
party  and  set  off  alone.  His  goal  was  not  Suez  itself, 
but  a  point  on  the  coast  where  a  flank  of  the  Atakah 
hills  juts  out  towards  the  sea.  Atakah  means  deliver- 
ance, and  tradition  held  the  name  to  commemorate  the 
crossing  of  the  Red  Sea  by  the  Israelites.  He  wished 
to  visit  the  spot  and  form  his  own  judgment  as  to  proba- 
bilities. As  a  mere  feat  of  endurance  the  expedition  was 
noteworthy.  He  left  the  boat  at  Cairo  at  6  a.m.  on 
Friday  morning,  travelled  by  rail  third-class  across  un- 
broken desert  to  Suez,  with  no  back  to  his  wooden 
bench,  and  the  heat  and  dust  blowing  in  through  glassless 
windows ;  left  Suez  itself  at  noon,  the  sun  pouring  down 
with  such  strength  that  it  made  the  sandy  environs 
"  glow  and  glisten  and  dance,"  and  caused  mirage  on 
every  hand;  walked  in  all  about  thirty  miles,  twenty  of 
them  along  the  beach  on  yielding  sand,  and  broke  the 
even  stretch  by  climbing  a  rocky  summit  of  hills  infested 
by  robbers,  and  there  straining  his  ankle !  He  was  back 
in  Suez  again  at  3  a.m.  (twenty-one  hours  after  leaving 
the  boat),  chatted  at  an  Arab's  fire  till  dawn,  and  was 
only  prevented  then  from  starting  off  by  donkey  for  the 
Wells  of  Moses,  by  finding  no  one  willing  to  undertake 
the  journey  in  the  eight  hours  left  at  his  disposal.  These 
hours  he  therefore  spent,  not  in  resting,  but  in  exploring 


60         SERVING  HIS  APPRENTICESHIP 

the  environs  of  Suez,  bathing  in  the  ford,  and  gathering 
shells  and  corals.  At  last  he  seated  himself  again  on 
the  backless  bench  of  a  third-class  carriage,  retraced  the 
desert  route,  and  reached  his  friends  about  7  p.m.  on 
Saturday  night,  having  had  not  a  wink  of  sleep,  but  the 
most  interesting  and  delightful  excursion  he  had  ever 
known. 

Such  in  brief  outline  was  the  feat  of  the  explorer. 
The  details  of  the  expedition  abound  in  interest  and  are 
graphically  related  to  his  sister  in  twelve  closely  written 
quarto  pages.  There  seems  to  be  nothing  he  had  not 
enjoyed :  the  charm  of  the  desert  "  level  as  the  placid 
sea ; "  the  beautiful  "  tapering  curves  of  the  wind-blown 
mounds  of  sand ;  "  the  beauty  of  "  the  bright  blue  sea  like 
a  sleeping  nymph  motionless  on  the  bosom  of  the  brown, 
burnt  plain ; "  the  utter  silence,  "  broken  only  by  the 
ripple  of  sparkling  wavelets,  and  the  measured  grating 
of  my  footsteps  on  the  yielding  sand ;  "  the  exquisite 
shells  and  corals;  the  solitude — "only  the  track  of  one 
man  and  a  camel  on  ten  miles  of  beach ; "  the  "  myriads 
of  crabs  hardly  larger  than  ants  that  hid  at  my  ap- 
proach ; "  and  "  the  finny  tribes,"  whose  haunts  he  in- 
vaded in  waters  so  clear  that  sight  seemed  as  easy  in  its 
depths  as  if  he  were  himself  a  fish. 

This  was  his  last  letter  to  his  sister.  Word  soon 
reached  him  that  her  long  illness  was  nearing  its  close. 
He  had  already  reluctantly  intimated  his  resignation,  and 
the  committees,  his  salary  long  unpaid,  had  as  reluctantly 
acquiesced.  The  local  committee,  who  were  all  sympa- 
thetic friends,  now  willingly  allowed  him  to  hasten  his 
departure.  He  consequently  arrived  at  his  aunt's  house 
in  Scotland  unannounced.  "  Yet,"  he  writes,  "  when  I 
entered  her  room  I  found  Eliza  expecting  me."  Her  sole 
remaining  wish  was  gratified  in  seeing  her  brother  John. 


DEATH  OF  HIS  SISTER  61 

She  was  so  calm,  so  gently  submissive  and  absolutely 
ready,  that  at  her  bedside  he  "  learned  much  "  and  the 
fortnight  spent  there  was  in  a  sense  a  joy.  "  On  the 
26th  of  June  the  Lord  took  her  to  Himself.  He  had  more 
need  of  her  in  heaven  than  in  Egypt." 


IV 

MARRIAGE  AND  SHIPWRECK 

Beloved,  let  us  love  so  well 
Our  work  shall  still  be  better  for  our  love, 
And  still  our  love  be  sweeter  for  our  work, 
And  both  commended  for  the  sake  of  each 
By  all  true  Workers  and  true  Lovers  born. 

— Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 

WE  have  now  reached  a  point  where  the  reminis- 
cences penned  in  the  sick-room  become  less  de- 
tailed. The  writer  is  suddenly  reticent.  He 
mentions  that  he  completed  his  course  at  the  Divinity 
Hall  in  September,  1859,  and  was  licensed  by  the  Edin- 
burgh Presbytery  two  months  later,  and  then  compresses 
into  one  weighty  sentence  the  crowning  event  of  the 
year :  "  Shortly  afterwards  the  Lord,  whom  I  had  been 
long  entreating  on  the  subject,  guided  me  to  her  who 
is  now  my  wife." 

When  in  reminiscent  mood,  he  would  recall  with 
amusement  some  incidents  of  the  guidance  to  which  he 
here  alludes,  especially  one  momentous  occasion  when 
the  petition  he  had  so  often  offered  in  secret  was 
cavalierly  forced  from  his  reluctant  lips.  His  future 
career  was  no  longer  uncertain.  At  the  request  of  their 
missionaries  in  Egypt,  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of 
the  United  Presbyterian  Church  of  North  America  had 
sent  him  a  cordial  invitation  to  work  in  his  old  field  as 
their  agent.  He  had  gladly  accepted  the  call,  as  Egypt 
had  won  his  heart,  and  to  work  under  his  own  Church 

62 


REV.  HOPE  M.  WADDELL  63 

would  have  involved  a  change  of  sphere.  He  was  ex- 
pecting shortly  to  return,  but  was  still  heart-whole  and 
alone. 

One  evening  when  calling  on  the  Rev.  James  Robert- 
son of  Newington,  "  the  apostle  of  love,"  the  two  men 
were  discussing  his  prospects  at  the  study  fire,  and  the 
subject  of  marriage  not  unnaturally  came  to  the  fore. 
Mr.  Robertson  suggested  that  they  should  immediately 
"  lay  the  matter  before  the  Lord."  They  knelt,  and  the 
young  man  awaited  on  his  knees  such  fervent  petitions, 
intimate  and  personal,  as  were  characteristic  of  the  saintly 
minister.  What  was  his  dismay  when  Mr.  Robertson 
suddenly  called  upon  "  his  young  brother  "  to  "  lead  "  ! 
His  embarrassment  was  complete,  and  refusal  or  obedi- 
ence seemed  alike  for  the  moment  impossible.  When  at 
last  an  Amen  was  safely  reached,  he  could  not  have  told 
one  word  he  had  uttered. 

The  remainder  of  the  interview  left  no  such  blank  in 
his  memory.  The  minister  showed  more  wisdom.  He 
dropped  good  seed  into  good  soil,  and  before  thorns  had 
time  to  spring  up  and  choke  resolve,  the  young  knight 
had  set  out  to  seek  his  lady.  Diffident  yet  daring,  he 
presented  himself,  a  stranger,  at  the  house  of  Rev.  Hope 
M.  Wadclell,  urged  on  by  the  thought  that  within  there 
might  await  him  the  wife  of  his  dreams. 

Mr.  Waddell's  name  had  become  a  household  word  in 
the  Church.  For  twenty-nine  years  he  had  laboured  as 
a  missionary  and  a  pioneer,  first  in  Jamaica  and  then  in 
Africa,  in  Old  Calabar,  having  entered  the  latter  almost 
alone  and  holding  his  life  at  cheap  purchase.  He  was 
a  man  of  tremendous  force  of  character  and  unlimited 
devotion,  and  his  self-denying  service  amongst  savage 
tribes  had  given  him  a  rich  stock  of  such  thrilling  experi- 
ences as  captivate  the  public  fancy.     He  was,  moreover, 


64  MARRIAGE  AND  SHIPWRECK  • 

Irish  by  birth,  and  possessed  to  the  full  the  qualities  of 
humour  and  pathos  and  the  warm  and  generous  emotions 
that  give  to  natural  eloquence  a  power  not  only  to  sway 
the  mind  of  an  audience,  but  to  win  its  heart.  He  was 
justly  one  of  the  Church's  heroes. 

The  ostensible  reason  for  the  young  man's  call  on 
such  a  celebrity  was  a  laudable  desire  on  the  part  of 
a  missionary-elect  to  get  the  benefit  of  a  veteran's  ex- 
perience on  some  grave  matters  of  mission  policy ;  but 
she  who  became  his  wife  recalls  certain  lively  passages 
in  an  adjoining  room  which  show  how  litle  the  vet- 
eran's family  were  deceived  by  the  specious  ruse.  The 
result,  however,  justified  the  venture.  He  found 
what  he  sought,  an  introduction  was  effected,  and  in 
a  few  short  weeks  he  was  engaged  to  the  missionary's 
niece. 

Bessie  Kay  was  a  child  of  the  mission-field.  Her 
father  had  been  a  grocer  and  spirit-merchant  at  the  time 
of  his  marriage,  but,  won  to  the  infant  cause  of  total 
abstinence,  felt  compelled  by  its  principles  to  give  up 
the  lucrative  part  of  his  business.  The  family  ties  to 
the  mission-field  were  already  strong.  Not  only  was  his 
wife's  sister  married  to  Mr.  Waddell,  then  labouring  in 
Jamaica,  but  his  own  sister  had  married  Rev.  John 
Simpson,  a  missionary  in  the  same  island  and  the  brother 
of  his  wife.  He  decided  to  join  in  the  work.  He  took 
his  family  to  Jamaica,  already  consecrated  to  him  by 
his  sister's  grave,  and  was  serving  as  a  catechist  while 
preparing  himself  for  ordination,  when  yellow  fever  cut 
him  oflf  on  the  threshold  of  his  new  career.  Mrs.  Kay 
was  thus  left  with  four  small  children  (the  eldest  only 
ten  and  the  youngest,  Bessie,  still  blinking  vaguely  at 
a  new-found  world),  and  was  herself  lying  so  near  the 
gate  of  death  that  for  long  she  remained  unconscious 


THE  BRIDE  65 

of  her  loss  and  entirely  unable  to  play  the  mother's  part 
to  her  orphaned  family. 

Meanwhile  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Waddell  took  the  newcomer 
under  their  care,  and  as  they  had  recently  lost  an  infant 
son,  she  seemed  in  a  special  sense  heaven-sent.  They 
never  relinquished  their  charge.  For  more  than  half  a 
century  they  occupied  a  father's  and  mother's  place  in 
her  life,  and  in  the  days  of  her  widowhood  and  their 
long  and  beautiful  old  age — a  season  of  life  that  their 
memory  must  ever  glorify  in  the  minds  of  all  who  knew 
them — extended  to  her  children  the  loving  thought  and 
care  that  is  the  gracious  dower  of  grandparents. 

When  John  Hogg  entered  Edinburgh  University  in 
1849,  his  future  wife,  then  a  child  of  eight,  was  attending 
school  in  the  same  city  in  company  with  Mr.  Waddell's 
own  daughters.  She  had  entered  Park  Place  Academy 
in  1847,  ^^^  through  twelve  unbroken  years  continued 
to  be  a  pupil  in  the  same  institution,  receiving  a  first-class 
education  in  all  branches  then  studied  by  girls,  including 
music,  Latin,  Italian,  French,  and  German,  and  winning 
various  honours  throughout  her  long  course.  The  two 
lives,  destined  at  last  to  mingle,  offered  at  this  time  the 
most  striking  contrast  as  each  pursued  its  solitary  way. 
While  the  one,  by  the  momentum  of  its  own  strong 
current,  was  cutting  out  a  course  for  itself  through  rocks 
of  difficulty,  the  other  flowed  placidly  forward  along  a 
gently  widening  groove  of  opportunity  prepared  for  its 
advance. 

The  engagement  lasted  but  seven  weeks,  and  the  wed- 
ding took  place  on  January  10,  i860,  Mr.  Robertson  of 
Newington  having  rightly  a  leading  part  in  the  cere- 
mony. Two  weeks  later  bride  and  bridegroom  sailed 
from  Liverpool  aboard  the  "  Scamander,"  and  the  "  un- 
dulatory  motion  "  they  had  jocularly  anticipated  imme- 


66  MARRIAGE  AND  SHIPWRECK 

diately  prostrated  them  in  their  berths.  Only  a  few  days 
had  passed  when  Mrs.  Kay  was  surprised  by  the  follow- 
ing letter: 

On  board  the  "  Cornelia," 

Off  Plymouth  :  2nd  February,  i860. 
Dear  Mother  : 

I  pray  you  not  to  be  alarmed  at  the  receipt  of  this 
note.  I  thought  of  sending  you  a  telegraphic  despatch, 
but  this  will  probably  reach  you  in  time  to  prepare  you 
for  our  sudden  and  unexpected  return. 

I  don't  know  what  kind  of  weather  you  have  had 
about  Edinburgh,  but  we  have  certainly  had  our  share 
of  gales,  squalls,  and  hurricanes  since  we  left;  still  that 
is  not  the  reason  why  we  are  now  in  sight  of  Plymouth 
harbour  instead  of  Gibraltar.  The  "  Scamander,"  after 
braving  it  lustily  for  several  days,  gave  in  at  last.  She 
sprang  a  leak  on  Monday  night  at  six  o'clock,  and  after 
labouring  all  night  to  discover  the  leak,  reduce  the  water, 
and  so  save  the  ship,  it  was  evident  to  all  by  daybreak  on 
Tuesday  that  we  must  escape  for  our  lives.  Accord- 
ingly the  four  boats  were  lowered — one  was  smashed  in 
the  process,  the  others  got  down  safely  almost  by  miracle. 
Bessie  behaved  nobly — she  was  calm  and  collected  all 
the  time ;  neither  of  us  expected  aught  but  the  worst ; — 
(we  shall  give  you  lengthened  details  when  we  arrive 
in  Edinburgh,  which  (D.  V.)  we  hope  to  do,  perhaps 
by  Saturday  evening.) 

We  had  not  been  above  five  hours  in  our  boats  when 
we  discovered  a  steamer  bearing  down  somewhat  in  our 
direction ;  so  it  was  a  pull  for  life.  In  about  an  hour  she 
seemed  to  have  descried  us,  for  she  tacked  about  and 
bore  down  upon  us ;  and  thanks  be  to  God  for  His 
miraculous  intervention — for  I  cannot  call  it  anything 
less — the  whole  forty  of  us  got  safe  aboard  without  even 
a  broken  limb,  though  the  sea  was  rolling  tremendously 
all  the  time.  We  had  not  been  well  aboard  the  new 
steamer  when  the  "  Scamander  "  went  down,  stern  fore- 
most, into  the  depths  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay. 

IV e  have  lost  everything,  but  cannot  help  feeling  con- 


A  LETTER  FROM  THE  SEA  67 

fident  that  He  who  plucked  us  out  of  the  jaws  of  death 
will  Himself  become  the  breaker  up  of  our  way.  Oh, 
let  us  trust  Him!  There  was  doubtless  a  "need  be," 
and  what  that  "  need  be  "  was  will  probably  soon  be 
made  plain  to  us.  Meanwhile,  let  us  lift  up  a  song  of 
gratitude  and  praise  to  Him  for  having  wrought  out 
our  deliverance  in  so  remarkable  a  manner.  Oh,  for 
grace  to  dedicate  our  rescued  lives  to  Him ! 

This  is  the  only  letter  that  I  shall  be  able  to  write  to 
Edinburgh,  but  this  will  suffice  to  prepare  you  all  for 
our  return,  so  in  the  hope  of  seeing  you  soon, 
I  remain, 

Your  most  affectionate  son, 

John  Hogg. 

P.  S. — We  are  both  in  good  health  and  spirits,  and 
unite  in  sending  to  all  our  dear  friends  our  warmest 
love. 

The  young  couple  now  found  themselves  a  centre  of 
universal  interest.  Their  wedding  had  already  attracted 
considerable  attention.  Not  only  had  the  youthfulness  of 
the  bride  (she  was  only  eighteen),  the  rapid  movement  of 
events  from  introduction  to  marriage,  and  the  unfamiliar 
destination  awaiting  her^  combined  to  tinge  the  event  with 
romance,  but  her  position  as  Mr.  Waddell's  niece  had 
brought  it  under  the  notice  of  a  very  wide  circle  of 
friends.  These  now  flocked  around  the  shipwrecked 
mariners,  and  the  tale  of  the  wreck  had  to  be  told  and 
retold  till  the  narrators  must  almost  have  been  tempted 
at  times  to  regret  their  escape  from  the  deep. 

It  was  a  tale  to  touch  public  sympathy.  They  had 
returned  with  no  possessions  in  the  world  beyond  the 
clothes  they  wore,  and  those  in  what  condition  can  be 
imagined,  after  six  hours'  tossing  in  an  open  boat  in  so 
wild  a  sea.  Their  chance  of  rescue  had  been  slight 
indeed.  They  were  120  miles  from  the  nearest  shore, 
with  a  strong  wind  blowing  seaward,  and  for  three  days 


68  MARRIAGE  AND  SHIPWRECK 

past  no  vessel  had  come  within  view.  Even  the  steamer 
that  at  last  effected  their  rescue  was,  when  sighted,  fol- 
lowing such  a  course  that  at  no  point  would  it  come 
within  six  miles  of  the  sinking  wreck.  At  the  best,  their 
tiny  flag  would  be  visible  through  its  telescope  only 
when  steamer  and  boat  were  simultaneously  on  the  crest 
of  a  wave.     It  seemed  one  chance  among  a  thousand. 

Not  till  they  were  actually  on  board  could  they  feel 
secure.  The  anxiety  was  tense  when  the  lady  passenger 
had  to  make  the  final  leap  for  safety.  The  deck  of  the 
"  Cornelia  "  was  lined  by  sailors,  in  order  that  to  what- 
ever point  the  will  of  the  wind  should  bring  her,  she 
might  find  there  hands  stretched  out  to  help.  Only  at 
one  moment  could  the  leap  be  safely  accomplished.  She 
must  seize  her  opportunity  as  soon  as  the  waves  brought 
the  tossing  boat  close  to  the  vessel's  rim.  A  moment's 
hesitation  and  a  watery  chasm  would  yawn  between,  into 
which  to  fall  meant  death.  She  accepted  the  situation, 
however,  with  the  simplicity  and  outward  calm  that  never 
failed  her,  leapt  when  directed,  and  discovered  herself 
the  heroine  of  the  hour. 

The  rescuing  vessel  had  itself  suffered  severely — 
deck-houses,  kitchen,  and  bulwarks  having  been  swept 
away  by  the  storm — but  the  captain  showed  the  greatest 
kindness  to  his  unexpected  guests  and  even  went  out  of 
his  route  in  order  to  land  them  at  Plymouth.  On  every 
hand  the  same  treatment  awaited  them.  All  their  wed- 
ding gifts  were  repeated,  in  money  if  not  in  kind.  Per- 
sonal friends  interested  others  in  their  behalf,  and  dona- 
tions came  in  from  the  most  unexpected  quarters,  in 
America  as  well  as  in  Britain,  with  so  much  liberality 
that  at  length  they  shared  in  the  experience  of  Job, 
whose  latter  end  the  Lord  blessed  more  than  his  begin- 
ning. 


COMPENSATIONS  69 

Egypt,  too,  profited  by  the  catastrophe.  The  mission 
work  was  brought  to  the  notice  of  many  who  would  not 
otherwise  have  known  of  its  existence,  but  henceforward 
followed  with  interest  the  career  of  the  young  couple 
whose  enterprise  had  had  so  dramatic  a  beginning.  When 
in  time  of  stress  these  new  friends  proved  themselves  as 
ready  to  aid  in  the  work  as  they  had  been  to  help  the 
workers,  the  missionary  considered  that  the  "  need  be  " 
for  his  shipwreck  had  been  made  plain,  and  at  seasons 
when  prospects  looked  dark  he  would  rally  his  spirits 
and  encourage  his  faith  with  the  refrain :  "  Remember  the 
Bay  of  Biscay." 


V 

AT  THE  PORT  OF  EGYPT 

With  aching  hands  and  bleeding  feet 
We  dig  and  heap,  lay  stone  on  stone; 
We  bear  the  burden  and  the  heat 
Of  the  long  day,  and  wish  'twere  done. 
Not  till  the  hours  of  light  return, 
All  we  have  built  do  we  discern. 

— Matthew  Arnold. 

THE  days  in  Edinburgh  must  have  held  little  rest, 
for  in  less  than  four  weeks  a  new  outfit  of  some 
sort  was  in  readiness  and  the  missionaries  were 
again  on  their  travels.  This  time  they  had  a  prosperous 
journey,  shortened  their  voyage  by  going  overland  to 
Marseilles,  and  reached  Alexandria  on  Sabbath,  March 
1 8,  i860,  a  day  sooner  than  expected.  They  arrived  in 
excellent  spirits,  Mr.  Hogg  delighted  to  be  able  to  sur- 
prise Mr.  Lansing  with  a  well-earned  respite  from  his 
Sabbath  labours,  and  his  wife  determined  to  "  like  every- 
thing," imagining  hot  winds  zephyrs,  and  devoting 
lizards,  beetles,  and  cockroaches,  with  a  passing  shudder, 
to  oblivion. 

With  a  new  reason  for  caring  about  his  surroundings, 
Alexandria  looked  to  the  returning  missionary  dirtier 
than  ever  before,  its  streets  narrower  and  more  dingy,  its 
houses  more  dilapidated.  Doubtless  his  quarters  at  the 
Mission  House  created  the  same  impression,  for  he  could 
feel  little  pride  in  welcoming  his  bride  to  his  two  bachelor 
rooms  in  the  Lansings'  dwelling-house,  and  he  had  no 
immediate  prospect  of  having  a  home  of  his  own. 

70 


ARRIVAL  71 

The  rooms  were  situated  in  opposite  corners  of  a 
flat  that  was  devoted  to  school  purposes  and  swarmed 
all  day  with  schoolboys.  They  were  manifestly  for  use 
and  not  for  comfort,  with  stone  floors  partially  covered 
with  matting,  woodwork  that  tried  to  remind  you  that 
it  had  once  been  green,  walls  that  had  "  never  been 
spoiled  by  paint  or  paper,''  and  old  furniture  that  had 
not  boasted  greatly  even  in  its  youth. 

The  study  contained  shelves  of  books,  a  schoolbench, 
a  broken  rocker,  some  cheap  straight-backed  chairs,  and, 
inevitably,  trunks.  The  bedroom  also  contained  trunks, 
while  its  furniture  the  young  wife  declared  to  be  de- 
serving of  all  respect,  inasmuch  as  it  was  still  willing  to 
be  engaged  in  active  service,  notwithstanding  that  it  bore 
traces  of  having  had  a  lengthened  and  honourable  career. 

In  addition  to  its  venerable  furnishing,  the  room,  how- 
ever, contained  more  than  at  first  met  the  eye,  an  invisi- 
ble tenantry  which  are  a  life-long  trial  to  the  missionary 
in  Egypt. 

"  These  animals  are  commonly  known  by  the  honoura- 
ble appellation  of  Fleas,"  wrote  the  young  wife,  "  but  they 
are  sometimes  accompanied  by  less  honoured  members 
of  a  similar  class  whose  unworthy  name  I  shall  forbear 
to  mention.  They  seem  to  be  the  great  scourge  of  Egypt, 
and  must  be,  I  think,  a  remnant  which  has  escaped  from 
the  general  destruction  in  the  days  of  Hebrew  bondage." 

The  discomforts  of  the  new  lot,  however,  were  proba- 
bly less  unexpected  than  the  warmth  of  the  compensat- 
ing welcome  that  awaited  them,  not  from  the  mission- 
aries alone,  from  whom  as  closest  of  kin  it  was  but 
natural,  but  from  all  and  sundry  alike,  teachers,  pupils, 
servants,  and  friends.  The  story  of  their  wreck  had 
preceded  them,  and  in  every  greeting  there  was  present 


72  AT  THE  PORT  OF  EGYPT 

the  memory  of  their  great  deliverance.  English  resi- 
dents came  also  with  their  congratulations.  Perhaps  the 
schoolgirls  were  the  most  demonstrative.  There  was  a 
general  ''  Oh !  "  and  a  rush  for  their  hands  when  they 
entered  the  girls'  school  for  the  first  time,  as  well  as 
songs  of  welcome,  bouquets  of  flowers,  and  a  special 
wreath  of  artificial  orange  blossoms  made  for  the  bride. 
Altogether  their  experiences  on  the  threshold  of  their 
missionary  career  revealed  the  number  and  the  strength 
of  the  ties  that  had  been  slowly  forming  through  the 
years,  and  contrasted  strikingly  with  those  of  the  lonely 
teacher  who  in  1857  had  faced  work  in  the  same  city 
disapproved  of  and  alone. 

Mr.  Lansingj  with  all  his  talent,  had  no  special  aptitude 
for  educational  work.  Mr.  Hogg,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
a  born  teacher  and  organiser.  Naturally  the  boys'  school 
fell  to  his  charge  as  before.  During  the  years  of  his  ap- 
prenticeship he  had  always  interpreted  his  commission 
broadly.  Like  most  teachers  on  the  mission-field,  he 
had  not  stuck  to  the  letter  of  his  contract.  He  had  added 
Sabbath  work,  which  was  not  in  the  bond,  had  taught 
a  girls'  Bible  class,  and  preached  weekly  sermons.  He 
had  even  devoted  as  laborious  hours  to  language  study 
as  any  permanent  worker  in  the  field. 

This  being  so,  the  reader  may  imagine  that  his  lot 
had  been  but  slightly  altered  by  becoming  a  missionary. 
Even  to  himself  it  may  at  first  have  appeared  that  the 
only  change  was  one  to  greater  liberty  of  action  and 
more  variety  of  occupation.  He  felt  free,  for  example, 
to  defer  entrance  on  his  own  duties  till  he  had  given 
Miss  Dales  a  short  rest  by  taking  her  place  in  the  girls' 
school  for  a  few  days,  and  as  her  health  was  precarious, 
he  continued  for  months  to  devote  to  it  two  hours  daily, 
although  the  boys'  school  was  his  own  definite  charge. 


CONDITIONS  OF  MISSIONARY  LIFE       73 

There,  too,  his  work,  while  as  responsible  as  ever,  was 
less  confining.  The  teaching  was  chiefly  in  the  hands  of 
a  Syrian  head-master  and  an  Egyptian  assistant,  the 
religious  teaching  being  his  special  department,  to  which 
he  added  a  singing  class  that  became  a  strong  attraction 
through  his  infectious  enthusiasm,  and  drew  more  pupils 
to  the  school.  Beyond  this,  such  time  as  he  could  con- 
trol was  devoted  as  formerly  to  language  study,  Italian 
being  now  relegated  to  the  background  and  his  entire 
energy  concentrated  on  Arabic.  On  the  whole,  the 
change  at  a  casual  glance  breathes  of  emancipation. 

A  look  beneath  the  surface,  however,  may  alter  our 
opinion  and  reveal  the  fact  that  inwardly  he  was  more 
bound  than  before.  He  had  voluntarily  dedicated  himself 
soul  and  body  to  an  enterprise  before  which  the  most 
capable  stands  dwarfed,  and  in  face  of  which  his  utmost 
achievement  must  ever  prove  less  than  the  situation  de- 
manded. Henceforth,  even  when  over-straining  his  pow- 
ers, a  haunting  sense  of  shortcoming  would  be  apt  to 
replace  the  old  emancipating  sense  of  going  beyond  his 
contract. 

Moreover,  a  missionary  is  one  of  those  whose  day's 
work  has  no  definite  limit.  There  is  no  hour  at  which 
the  claim  of  his  calling  automatically  ceases,  no  daily 
allotment  of  labour,  to  do  more  than  which  is  to  pass 
out  of  the  realm  of  duty,  and  whose  accomplishment 
leaves  him  free  to  doff  the  missionary  and  develop  the 
man.  There  is  no  room  available  for  the  stimulating 
interests  and  hobbies  that  men  are  wont  to  cultivate  along 
the  margin  of  their  lives,  and  should  the  missionary  by 
sheer  force  of  will  create  a  margin  and  seek  to  keep  it 
sacred  to  family  life  and  to  his  personal  weal,  the  en- 
closure will  presently  be  invaded  by  duties  unexpectedly 
thrust  upon  him.    Claims  of  the  corporate  body  of  which 


74  AT  THE  PORT  OF  EGYPT 

he  is  a  loyal  member,  claims  of  the  work  as  a  whole,  of 
which  his  own  is  so  small  a  portion — such  claims  must 
take  precedence  of  all  that  is  private  and  personal.  How 
to  respond  adequately  without  neglecting  his  previous  re- 
sponsibilities will  be  a  continual  problem,  in  the  solution 
of  which  all  considerations  of  what  is  due  to  the  normal 
development  of  his  own  life  and  character  are  liable  to 
be  swept  away.  The  man  who  so  often  in  the  past  had 
driven  his  life  at  breakneck  speed  was  soon  to  find  it 
beyond  his  control,  and  the  overwork  which  had  always 
been  to  him  a  temptation  and  a  snare  was  henceforth  to 
become  his  inevitable  lot. 

Of  the  full  force  of  the  change,  however,  he  was  not 
at  once  conscious.  Mr.  Lansing,  though  suffering  often 
from  ophthalmia,  persevered  with  his  share  of  the  work, 
and  for  some  months  Mr.  Hogg  was  able  to  follow  in  a 
measure  the  routine  he  had  marked  out  for  himself.  His 
ordination  took  place  on  May  22,  and  was  the  first  official 
act  of  the  mission's  newly  formed  Presbytery,  of  which 
he  was  chosen  clerk.  On  June  24  he  preached  his  first 
sermon  in  Arabic,  following  it  from  time  to  time  with 
others  whenever  he  had  them  ready  for  delivery. 

In  July,  the  whole  household,  seeking  health,  encamped 
in  tents  at  Ramleh,  a  desert  region  that  has  since  blos- 
somed like  the  rose,  stretching  along  the  seacoast  east- 
ward from  the  city.  The  camp  was  fixed  at  twenty 
minutes'  distance  from  the  sea,  and  the  school  was  con- 
sidered by  the  Scotsman  still  within  walking  distance,  till 
a  few  experiments  taught  him  wisdom  and  led  to  the 
purchase  of  Lucifero,  his  first  donkey.  Here  teaching 
was  for  a  while  confined  to  three  days  weekly,  and 
Arabic  was  the  engrossing  interest  of  the  hour.  The 
wind,  the  glare,  and  the  flies  at  last  drove  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Lansing,  with  their  sick  baby,  back  to  town,  and  the 


TENT-LIFE  AT  RAMLEH  75 

young  couple  were  for  the  first  time  alone  on  Egyptian 
soil.  Some  glimpses  of  their  life  may  be  gleaned  from 
a  letter  from  Mrs.  Hogg  to  her  sister : 

"  There  is  a  new  home-feeling  that  creeps  over  us, 
as  John  and  I  sit  down  to  our  breakfast  and  tea  alone, 
that  has  an  irresistible  fascination  about  it.  .  .  .  The 
mornings  and  evenings  are  beautiful,  and  if  you  could 
sit  down  with  us  you  would  be  charmed.  We  have  the 
tent  thrown  quite  open  so  as  to  have  the  full  benefit  of 
the  sea  breeze,  and  thus  we  have  a  wide  landscape  thor- 
oughly oriental  in  its  character  lying  stretched  out  before 
us,  upon  which  we  can  feast  our  eyes.  .  .  .  First  of  all 
there  is  as  much  sand  as  your  heart  could  wish,  if  not 
more;  then  there  are  majestic  palm  trees,  and  in  the 
evening  the  rich  glow  of  sunset  which  sets  off  the  palm 
trees  to  great  advantage ;  while  in  the  morning  there  is 
the  deep  blue  sky  and  everything  looking  fresh  and  beau- 
tiful from  the  heavy  dew  which  falls  almost  every  night. 
For  some  mornings  past  we  have  been  having  breakfast 
in  the  open  air  under  the  shade  of  some  palm  trees, 
where  we  sit  on  the  sand  in  Arab  fashion  round  an  Arab 
table  which  is  not  a  foot  high." 

Mercifully  they  little  dreamed  how  seldom  through 
the  many  years  of  married  life  that  lay  before  them  they 
would  be  able  to  "  sit  down  to  breakfast  and  tea 
alone."  In  Egypt  the  married  missionaries  have  al- 
ways held  their  homes  at  the  mission's  disposal,  and 
with  a  generosity  for  which  they  deserve  and  win  un- 
measured gratitude  and  love,  have  ever  been  ready  to 
share  their  homes  with  the  unmarried  workers  on  the 
field,  the  loneliness  of  whose  lot  they  thus  greatly  re- 
lieve. The  willingness  of  this  service  and  the  tenderness 
of  the  ties  that  often  spring  from  it  do  not  nullify  the 
sacrifice  involved.  The  unhampered  freedom  and  privacy 
so  essential  to  that  "  home-feeling "  that  rendered  the 


7&  AT  THE  PORT  OF  EGYPT 

tent-life  fascinating  are  not  mere  luxuries,  the  surrender 
of  which  serves  only  to  diminish  the  pleasure  of  exist- 
ence. To  some  natures  they  are  almost  essential  to  real 
self-expression  and  to  the  development  of  some  of  the 
finest  possibilities  latent  in  their  souls. 

Of  such  a  nature  was  the  man  whose  life  we  are  now 
endeavouring  to  follow  and  understand.  To  the  end  the 
impression  he  generally  created  was  of  a  warm,  genial 
frankness,  and  perhaps  only  those  nearest  and  dearest  to 
him  realised  how  limited  was  the  area  of  that  frankness, 
and  what  barriers  of  reserve  imprisoned  the  soul  within. 
With  babies  and  little  children  he  retained  all  his  days 
the  power  of  lavishing  his  affection  with  perfect  nat- 
uralness, and  their  response  was  invariable  and  imme- 
diate; but  a  kind  of  shyness  that  contradicted  his  outer 
manner  encased  his  heart.  His  deeper  feelings  he  could 
rarely  reveal,  and  in  regard  to  them  his  pen  moved  more 
readily  than  his  lips.  That  he  was  conscious  of  his  dis- 
ability and  realised  its  cause  is  evident  from  a  sentence 
penned  near  the  close  of  his  life.  "  It  is  our  misfor- 
tune," he  says,  "  and  not  our  fault,  that  living  as  we 
have  always  done  in  the  sight  of  others,  our  affections 
have  been  restrained  from  showing  themselves  so  much 
that  it  has  become  unnatural  for  us  to  show  them."  Yet 
even  in  those  closing  years  there  was  something  in  him 
that  constrained  a  feeling  that  his  reserve  and  undemon- 
strativeness  were  an  accident  of  his  lot  rather  than  an 
inherent  element  of  his  character,  and  that  to  the  mission 
cause  he  had  sacrificed  what  was  more  precious  than 
talents,  time,  and  strength ;  he  had  sacrificed  some  of 
the  most  sacred  possibilities  and  joys  of  manhood. 

The  tent-life  was  soon  over,  and  the  young  couple 
began  housekeeping  in  the  dwelling  hitherto  occupied  by 
the  Lansings — Miss  Dales  and  later  Miss  McKown,  who 


THE  WORK  IN  ALEXANDRIA  77 

arrived  in  November,  living  with  them.  It  had  been 
decided  that  Mr.  Lansing,  as  not  needing  to  be  in  touch 
with  the  schools,  should  rent  a  house  in  the  Moham- 
medan quarter.  Sickness,  however,  intervened,  and 
changes  subsequently  occurred  that  prevented  his  reset- 
tlement in  Alexandria,  and  finally  determined  his  loca- 
tion in  the  metropolis. 

The  whole  responsibility  of  the  Alexandria  work  was 
thus  suddenly  thrown  upon  the  younger  man  in  less  than 
two  months  after  the  preaching  of  his  first  sermon  in 
the  language  of  the  country.  Only  his  successors  on  the 
field,  who  with  travail  of  soul  have  attained  a  use  of 
that  strange  and  difificult  tongue,  can  duly  appreciate  the 
magnitude  of  the  task  confronting  him.  Even  had  Eng- 
lish been  his  vehicle  of  expression,  the  preparation  of  two 
new  sermons  weekly  would  have  been  no  slight  burden  to 
carry,  considering  the  many  other  responsibilities,  new 
and  old,  that  complicated  his  life.  These  waged  a  con- 
stant and  successful  warfare  against  "  proper  evangelistic 
labour,"  in  which  the  latter,  the  "  anxious  desire "  of 
his  heart,  was  forced  to  take  refuge  in  spare  half  hours. 
His  wife,  watching  the  effect  of  defeated  longing  on 
the  soul  that  harboured  it,  significantly  remarks,  "  I  am 
sure  John's  health  would  be  much  better  if  his  work  were 
less  secular." 

He  tries  to  make  clear  the  situation  in  a  letter  to  his 
former  pastor  at  Tranent : 

"  Two  days'  stay  with  us  here  would  go  far  to  explain 
the  whole  matter.  Let  me  try  to  give  you  some  idea  of 
the  amount  of  secular  work  that  falls  to  be  done. 

"First:  All  Scriptures  and  other  books  sent  to  Egypt 
for  mission  work  have  to  pass  through  our  hands,  and 
...  it  requires  nearly  a  day  to  bring  a  box  of  books 
from  the  steamer  out  in  the  harbour,  through  the  custom 


78  AT  THE  PORT  OF  EGYPT 

house,  to  the  bookshop,  and  thence  to  the  railway  station. 
This  falls  to  be  done  at  least  once  a  fortnight. 

"Second:  The  schools  have  to  be  attended  to.  I  refer 
...  to  the  unwieldy  machinery — two  local  committees 
and  three  in  Scotland  who  have  to  be  kept  informed  of 
the  progress  of  the  work. 

"  Third:  Accurate  reports  of  our  sales  at  the  Scripture 
Depository  have  to  be  forwarded  from  time  to  time  to 
the  Bible  Society  in  London. 

"Fourth:  The  keeping  of  the  accounts  of  our  schools, 
depot,  committees,  Mission  Board,  etc.,  consumes  a  large 
amount  of  precious  time,  owing  to  the  numerous  and 
ever-changing  values  of  the  coins  current  in  the  country. 

"  Add  to  this  our  frequent  interruptions  from  passing 
travellers,  some  of  whom  almost  expect  us  to  throw  our- 
selves at  their  service  and  take  them  round  to  see  the 
lions  of  the  place,  and  you  will  have  some  slight  idea  of 
the  secular  portion  of  a  missionary's  work  at  a  central 
station  and  seaport  town  like  Alexandria." 

His  heavy  clerical  work  was  increased  in  January, 
1861,  by  his  becoming  general  treasurer  for  the  entire 
mission,  and  he  mentions  spending  eight  hours  a  day 
for  three  weeks  over  semi-annual  reports  to  the  Mission 
Board  and  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society.  America 
was  in  the  throes  of  civil  war,  and  the  difficulty  of  secur- 
ing funds  to  carry  on  mission  work  was  naturally  ex- 
treme. For  years  bankruptcy  seemed  imminent,  and  the 
Egyptian  treasurer,  facing  simultaneously  constant  calls 
for  money  and  an  empty  exchequer,  strained  every  nerve 
to  raise  funds  from  other  sources.  These  efforts  added 
greatly  to  a  correspondence  already  large.  He  still  nour- 
ished a  hope  that  the  United  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Scotland  might  eventually  unite  with  the  American 
Church  in  the  mission  in  Egypt;  and  though  his  many 
letters  on  this  subject  failed  of  their  first  intent,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  raising  much  interest  in  the  work,  and  the 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  79 

students  of  Edinburgh  United  Presbyterian  Divinity 
Hall  chose  Alexandria  as  their  scheme  of  effort  on  two 
succeeding  years,  raising  $4,000  for  the  cause  at  a  time 
of  direst  need. 

One  cannot  wonder  at  the  feeling  that  came  over  him 
as  he  faced  the  question :  "  What  is  the  nature  of  mission 
labour  in  Egypt  ?  "  in  writing  to  the  Missionary  Society 
of  the  United  Presbyterian  students  at  Allegheny,  Pa. 
"  Were  I  to  attempt  to  answer  .  .  . "  he  says,  "  by  giving 
you  a  detailed  account  of  my  own  labours  .  .  .  parti- 
cularly since  I  became  connected  with  your  Church's 
mission,  I  am  very  much  afraid  you  would  petition 
the  Board  for  my  speedy  recall,  or  at  least  you  would 
vote  me  a  layman  and  write  Esq.  after  my  name  in 
your  reply." 

Yet  when  one  turns  to  his  "  proper  evangelistic  la- 
bours "  one  is  amazed  at  the  amount  accomplished.  As 
already  mentioned,  the  religious  teaching  in  the  boys' 
school  was  in  his  hands,  and  the  senior  Scripture  class 
in  the  girls'  school  also.  Such  teaching  he  keenly  en- 
joyed and  considered  the  most  important  work  he  had 
to  do.  The  chapel  hour  with  the  boys  was  indeed  the 
happiest  hour  of  the  day.  The  majority  of  the  pupils 
were  not  children  but  grown  lads.  About  a  third  of 
them  were  Moslems  from  twelve  to  sixteen  years  of  age, 
and  they  formed  an  inspiring  audience,  listening  to  his 
expository  remarks  on  the  Scripture  lesson  "  as  atten- 
tively as  if  they  were  sitting  as  a  jury  in  a  case  of  life 
and  death." 

Anxious  that  the  pupils  after  leaving  school  should  not 
drift  away  from  Christian  influences,  he  very  soon 
opened  a  reading-room  for  young  men,  stocking  it  with 
books  and  periodicals,  religious  and  secular,  in  various 
languages.     Here  he  was  in  attendance  every  evening 


80  AT  THE  PORT  OF  EGYPT 

from  six  to  nine  o'clock.  The  conversation  was  some- 
times religious,  sometimes  scientific,  and  the  little  gather- 
ing, varying  in  numbers  from  six  to  sixteen,  always 
closed  with  singing,  reading,  and  prayer.  Prayer  meet- 
ings, lectures  in  astronomy,  and  studies  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  occasionally  took  the  place  of  reading  and 
conversation,  and  as  time  went  on  the  interest  of  the 
gathering  centred  more  and  more  on  religion. 

Work  gives  birth  to  work.  The  young  men  began  to 
plead  for  a  Sabbath  Bible  class  and  their  plea  was  granted. 
It  was  held  at  the  same  hour  as  the  Sabbath  school, 
shortly  before  the  morning  service,  twelve  to  fourteen 
being  the  usual  attendance. 

His  Sabbaths,  though  arduous,  were  the  joy  of  the 
week,  as  being  days  entirely  devoted  to  the  work  his 
heart  delighted  in.  The  audience  room  was  packed  to 
discomfort,  in  spite  of  the  younger  scholars  having  been 
sent  home  previous  to  the  service  to  make  room  for  their 
seniors.  The  place  of  meeting,  an  upper  room  in  a 
narrow  side-street,  was  shabby  and  dingy,  badly  seated 
and  badly  ventilated,  too  uncomfortable  as  well  as  unat- 
tractive to  draw  casual  and  curious  hearers.  This  was 
a  keen  sorrow  and  narrowed  his  influence.  It  had  but 
one  element  of  compensation,  that  with  the  occasional 
exception  of  some  man  who  had  an  axe  to  grind,  the 
service  was  attended  entirely  by  such  interested  listeners 
as  a  speaker  delights  in.  "  You  ask  me,"  he  writes, 
"how  I  like  preaching  in  Arabic?  I  like  it  so  much 
that  it  is  with  the  greatest  self-constraint  that  I  can 
get  to  the  end  of  a  sermon  in  less  than  an  hour!  I  feel 
as  if  I  could  preach  all  day  long !  "' 

But  though  "  never  so  happy  "  as  when  preaching,  he 
would  spend  the  interval  at  noon  tossing  uneasily  on  a 
divan  or  pacing  the  floor,  too  tired  to  rest;  and  when  a 


ARABIC  PREACHING  81 

second  service  had  followed,  the  climax  of  the  whole 
week's  effort  was  reached  and  an  exhaustion  settled  on 
him,  so  complete  that  often  the  new  week  was  half  over 
before  its  effects  had  worn  away.  What  increased  the 
strain  of  the  day  was  the  constant  inadequacy  of  his 
preparation,  for  believing  that  his  future  usefulness  would 
depend  largely  on  his  mastery  of  Arabic,  he  felt  forced  to 
devote  what  half-hours  of  leisure  he  could  secure  to  im- 
proving his  knowledge  of  the  language  rather  than  the 
quality  of  his  preaching.  Usually  Saturday  evening 
closed  upon  him  with  only  his  texts  in  readiness,  and 
as  the  thought  and  study  devoted  to  them  in  such  hours 
as  he  stole  from  the  night  rarely  bore  their  full  fruitage 
till  he  stood  a-face  with  his  audience  the  tension  during 
each  weekly  effort  was  extreme. 

One  cannot  but  recognise  the  fact  that  so  early  and 
lavish  a  use  of  unprepared  and  uncorrected  speech  in 
a  new  language  was  a  dangerous  experiment,  likely  to 
result  in  habits  of  inaccurate  construction  and  slovenly 
pronunciation  that  might  have  shackled  him  for  life. 
But  the  man  proved  equal  to  the  test.  He  had  entered 
on  his  mission  life  singularly  equipped  for  the  service. 
His  delicate  ear  had  lessened  for  him  the  difficulty  not 
only  of  consonants  unknown  in  English,  but  of  the  more 
subtle  and  baffling  distinctions  of  sound  that  lurk  in 
such  consonants  and  vowels  as  are  supposed  to  be 
common  to  both  languages,  and  deceive  the  unwary 
westerner  by  their  apparent  similarity.  Moreover,  his 
native  linguistic  talent  bequeathed  on  him  that  sensitive- 
ness to  the  genius  of  a  language  that  aids  its  happy 
possessor  at  every  turn  and  shields  him  from  the  grosser 
forms  of  idiomatic  blunder. 

During  his  months  of  loneliness  in  1856  he  had,  as  he 
himself    acknowledged,    "  mastered    the    most    difficult 


82  AT  THE  PORT  OF  EGYPT 

part  "  of  Arabic, — its  pronunciation  and  its  general  struc- 
ture. He  held  that  with  good  health  and  working  with 
all  their  might,  most  men  could  do  this  in  a  year,  and 
that  this  correct  framework  once  secured,  all  future  study 
became  joy. 

Upon  this  joy  he  had  entered  when  he  joined  the  mis- 
sion in  i860,  and  instead  of  floundering  in  darkness  like 
many  an  anxious  beginner  at  the  mercy  of  an  inexperi- 
enced teacher,  was  able  from  the  start  to  act  the  part  of 
pilot  towards  the  port  he  sought.  When  therefore,  seven 
months  later,  he  was  forced  into  extemporary  preaching, 
he  had  doubtless  already  reached  a  stage  of  advance- 
ment that  few  attain  till  much  later  in  their  missionary 
career. 

The  dangers  of  the  experience  were  thus  greatly  di- 
minished, and  he  was  still  further  safeguarded  by  his  own 
high  standards  in  the  matter.  No  average  knowledge  of 
the  language  would  content  him.  The  grammatical  care- 
lessness of  even  educated  Egyptians  annoyed  his  ear, 
even  as  careless  pronunciation  of  English  had  done  at 
an  earlier  stage  in  his  life.  He  heartily  indorsed  the 
opinion  of  learned  Arabians  that  the  Arabic  language  is 
an  unfathomable  deep,  but  he  purposed  to  continue  his 
soundings  in  it  till  death,  and  believed  that  every  mis- 
sionary who  valued  his  influence  aright  would  do  the 
same.  With  such  viev/s,  carelessness  was  an  unlikely  sin, 
and  his  weekly  gain  was  great  in  the  fluency  and  ease 
with  which  he  could  use  an  instrument  at  first  unwieldy. 
When  1862  dawned  he  felt  himself  able  to  preach  a  better 
extemporaneous  sermon  in  Arabic  than  in  English. 

Meanwhile  for  months  he  had  been  undergoing  a  daily 
drill  in  the  rules  and  technique  of  the  language  that 
stood  him  in  good  stead,  however  regrettable  the  neces- 
sity at  the  time  as  stealing  hours  from  more  direct  mis- 


LACK  OF  SPACE  83 

sionary  labour.  In  the  boys'  school  the  head-master  de- 
serted, tempted  by  more  lucrative  openings  in  the  business 
world.  No  successor  was  available,  and  the  missionary 
for  half  a  year  taught  six  hours  daily  to  fill  the  vacant 
post.  As  his  assistants,  a  Syrian  and  a  Copt,  were  not 
sufficiently  advanced  in  Arabic  grammar  to  teach  the 
higher  classes,  these  all  fell  to  his  lot,  and  the  work  of 
preparation  proved  no  sinecure. 

The  keenest  trial  of  his  life  at  this  time  was  not  its 
strenousness,  its  complexity,  or  its  sacrifices.  It  was  the 
simple  physical  lack  of  space.  The  school  could  contain 
no  more  pupils,  the  audience-room  on  Sabbath  no  more 
worshippers.  When  numbers  increased,  new  pupils  and 
hearers  being  attracted  by  the  quality  of  the  teaching 
and  preaching  provided,  the  discomforts  of  overcrowding 
were  sure  to  drive  others  away.  Even  a  slow,  natural 
growth  became  impossible,  while  his  visions  were  of 
developments  far  beyond  the  region  of  the  natural,  unless 
viewed  in  the  light  of  the  infinite  power  of  the  Lord  of 
the  Kingdom. 

Looking  back  to  Alexandria  at  a  later  period  of  his 
life,  he  asserts  "  from  bitter  experience  "  that  this  *'  sense 
of  waste  "  is  after  all  "  the  heaviest  cross  that  a  mission- 
ary has  to  bear — to  have  to  preach  to  a  dozen  in  an  upper 
room  of  a  private  dwelling  when  with  a  mission  hall  in 
the  central  part  of  the  city  he  might  be  preaching  to  a 
thousand; "  and  remarks :  "  A  few  thousand  pounds, 
given  at  the  right  time,  would  have  multilDlied  the  area 
.  .  .  and  increased  the  value  of  our  missionary  labours 
tenfold  in  .   .   .  every  department." 

Of  trials  more  private  and  personal  the  years  in  Alex- 
andria were  singularly  free,  and  in  spite  of  all  draw- 
backs the  new  happiness  that  marriage  had  brought  into 
his  life  seemed  at  times  "  almost  too  great  to  last  long." 


84  AT  THE  PORT  OF  EGYPT 

It  was  still  further  increased  by  the  birth  of  a  daughter 
on  June  22,  1861 — Mary  Lizzie,  a  joyous  little  spirit 
whose  short  life  has  left  sunny  tracks  across  the  sea  of 
time.  Her  father's  home  letters  give  occasional  glimpses 
of  her  seated  on  his  knee  or  propped  up  among  the  cush- 
ions on  the  divan  amusing  herself  while  he  wrote,  and 
he  describes  her  as  "  fair,  fat,  and  funny,"  and  again 
as  "  pretty,  plump,  and  playful  as  a  kitten,  healthy  and 
good-tempered  like  her  mother." 

Care  there  was,  for  the  Board  repeatedly  warned  them 
that  on  account  of  financial  conditions  in  America  their 
salary  might  soon  be  reduced,  while  the  constant  calls 
on  their  hospitality,  inevitable  at  a  seaport,  already  ren- 
dered the  task  of  living  within  their  income  almost  be- 
yond their  power.  "  Lucifero  "  was  readily  sacrificed 
for  the  family  weal,  but  further  retrenchment  proved 
difficult.  Yet  the  burden  seems  to  have  pressed  but 
lightly  on  the  young  couple.  The  husband  declared  that 
if  it  came  to  the  worst  he  would  live  on  "  parritch  and 
sour  milk,"  or  "  take  to  making  tents  like  the  Apostle 
Paul,"  rather  than  give  up  his  new  work  and  go  home, 
and  both  seem  to  have  preserved  a  cheerful  confidence 
that  the  God  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay  would  not  let  them 
want. 


VI 
AT  THE  HEART  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

God  has  conceded  two  sights  to  a  man. 
One  of  man's  whole  work,  time's  completed  plan; 
The  other  of  the  minute's  work,  man's  first 
Step  to  the  plan's  completeness. 

— Robert  Browning. 

TO  many  the  term  "  mission  policy  "  has  doubtless 
a  forbidding  sound,  but  as  studied  in  the  con- 
crete by  the  Alexandrian  missionary  its  interest 
was  intense.  He  realised  acutely  that  a  vacillating  or 
mistaken  policy  must  mean  to  a  mission  what  it  would 
mean  to  an  army — loss  of  money,  loss  of  time,  loss  of 
human  life,  loss  of  force,  and  perhaps  a  lost  campaign. 
The  inhabitants  of  Egypt  numbered  at  this  time  about 
4,700,000;  the  men  of  the  mission  4.  By  what  disposal 
of  their  talents  might  these  mere  units  influence  vitally 
and  permanently  the  life  of  the  nation?  It  was  a  ques- 
tion for  a  Gideon  and  men  of  Gideon's  faith. 

Two  points  seemed  clear  to  him, — that  a  business  agent 
should  be  on  the  field  to  free  the  ordained  men  for  the 
work  for  which  they  had  been  qualified ;  and  that  each 
man,  thus  set  free,  should  focus  his  efforts  on  multiply- 
ing himself  by  raising  up  native  workers.  The  first 
policy  he  urged  upon  the  Board,  but  years  passed  before 
it  was  adopted.  The  second  policy  moulded  his  whole 
life. 

As  early  as  January,  1861,  he  writes  of  his  school 
that  its  aim  is  not  merely  the  intellectual,  moral,  and 

85 


86       AT  THE  HEART  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

religious  education  of  a  large  number  of  Alexandria's 
youth,  but  "  also  and  more  especially  "  the  training  of 
a  native  agency  to  duplicate  in  the  interior  his  own  mis- 
sionary labours.  Before  the  year  ended  his  view  was 
even  stronger. 

"  I  am  getting  more  and  more  of  opinion,"  he  says, 
"  that  the  missionary's  work  in  school  should  be  re- 
stricted to  the  training  of  teachers  and  native  agents, 
and  that  the  school  should  be  regarded  chiefly  as  of  use 
in  aflFording  these  young  men  scope  for  the  practice  of 
their  maiden  gifts,  under  the  eye  of  the  missionary." 

The  interior  had  laid  a  spell  upon  him  that  saved 
him  from  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  the  relative  im- 
portance of  his  own  sphere  of  labour.  On  September  6, 
i860,  he  had  united  with  Rev.  Mr.  McCague  and  Rev. 
Mr.  Lansing  in  the  purchase  of  the  "  Ibis,"  a  Nile-boat 
that  was  to  bring  within  easy  access  every  comer  of  the 
land,  and  the  interest  with  which  he  followed  the  jour- 
neys of  his  two  brethren  is  mirrored  in  his  letters  to 
the  home-land,  in  which  news  from  the  south  is  apt  to 
take  the  precedence  of  news  of  his  own  work.  The  ex- 
traordinary sales  of  Scripture,  the  schools  started  by 
Mr.  McCague  at  Luxor  and  Assiut,  the  native  colpor- 
teurs at  work,  Mr.  Lansing's  sermons  to  eager  crowds 
in  Luxor  Coptic  Church,  his  tour  with  the  Earl  and 
Countess  of  Aberdeen,  and  their  wonderful  success  in 
selling  books  and  Bibles — every  detail  was  dwelt  on  with 
delight.  Perhaps  the  most  significant  proof  of  the  keen- 
ness with  which  he  was  following  events  in  which  he 
had  no  personal  share  is  one  that  only  those  can  fully 
appreciate  who  are  familiar  with  the  painful  task  of  de- 
ciphering Arabic  handwriting.  Fourteen  folio  pages  are 
preserved  of  his  translation  at  this  time  of  an  account 


THE  MAP  OF  EGYPT  87 

of  the  persecution  of  a  Christian  worker  in  Assiut,  and 
a  copy  of  a  letter  from  Abraham  Lincoln  to  the  Khedive, 
congratulating  him  on  his  just  action  in  the  case,  to- 
gether with  the  Khedive's  reply,  all  of  which  he  trans- 
mitted to  Scotland  to  keep  the  interest  of  his  home 
Church  warm.  Even  when  pleading  for  buildings  for 
Alexandria,  one  of  the  arguments  urged  is  that  the  money 
being  spent  annually  on  the  rent  of  unsuitable  premises 
would  suffice,  if  released,  to  support  twelve  native  work- 
ers— not  in  Alexandria,  but  "  in  the  interior." 

Two  brief  interludes  of  river  life,  one  in  the  Delta 
and  the  other  in  the  Upper  Country,  played  so  important 
a  part  in  fixing  his  views  of  the  general  plan  of  cam- 
paign to  be  adopted  that  they  acquire  a  peculiar  interest. 

Strip  Egypt  of  its  desert  regions,  that  bulk  largely 
on  a  map  but  hardly  touch  the  consciousness  of  its 
people,  and  it  resembles  in  general  outline  a  long-tailed 
kite.  The  Nile  is  the  bond  of  the  whole, — the  string  to 
which  the  towns  and  villages  of  Upper  Egypt  are  attached, 
and  the  framework  on  which  Lower  Egypt,  the  kite- 
shaped  Delta,  is  spread.  Where  in  a  kite  string  ceases  and 
wooden  framework  begins,  the  Nile,  that  has  stood  for 
both,  itself  undergoes  a  change.  Hitherto  it  has  run 
in  a  broad  single  channel,  its  banks  fringed  by  a  narrow 
strip  of  cultivated  land,  ending  at  the  base  of  low  ranges 
of  hills.  When  the  Delta  is  reached  the  hills  fall  back 
and  vanish  from  view,  and  the  river  breaks  up  into  two 
main  streams  which,  veering  eastward  and  westward, 
flow  slowly  through  flat  landscape  to  the  sea.  Reaching 
it  a  hundred  miles  apart,  they  enclose  a  large  triangle 
of  the  richest  soil  on  earth,  perennially  green  and  closely 
populated. 

It  was  on  the  eastern  branch  of  the  Nile  and  in  this 
densely  peopled  territory  that  Mr.  Hogg,  in  the  Easter 


88       AT  THE  HEART  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

vacation  of  1861,  made  his  first  river  trip,  along  with 
his  wife  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lansing,  "  four  very  dear 
friends,"  who  could  "  live  in  the  closest  intercourse  with- 
out jarring."  He  looked  forward  to  it  with  the  keenest 
pleasure,  declaring  that  they  would  have  "  a  merry  time  " 
and  "  gather  rosebuds  "  in  their  pale  faces,  to  be  ready 
for  a  long  stretch  of  work  through  the  enervating  heat 
of  summer.  Duck  shooting  was  to  be  the  recreation  of 
the  two  men,  but  the  counter  attraction  of  the  villages 
seems  to  have  kept  their  guns  somewhat  idle,  and  the 
party  cannot  have  fared  sumptuously  on  the  game  pro- 
cured. 

At  Damietta  they  visited  an  old  Coptic  church,  where 
their  reception  proved  memorable.  The  athletic  insects 
that  in  Egypt  garrison  these  old  structures  leapt  on  them 
in  such  numbers  that  they  fled  routed,  peppered  from 
head  to  foot  by  their  foes.  Their  condition  was  desperate. 
They  took  refuge  in  the  river,  and  did  not  venture  to 
return  to  the  boat  till  they  had  rid  themselves  of  some 
hundreds  of  their  tormentors  and  partially  recovered 
their  self-respect. 

But  they  were  not  tourists,  and  it  was  interest  in  the 
people  themselves  and  not  in  their  buildings  that  drew 
them  to  the  towns ;  conversation  with  the  villagers, 
preaching  where  possible,  and  the  sale  of  Scriptures  to 
all  who  would  buy,  usually  filling  their  days. 

It  was,  of  course,  but  a  limited  district  that  they  could 
visit  in  four  weeks,  but  it  was  a  fair  sample  of  the  Delta 
as  a  whole.  The  Mohammedans,  besides  being  illiterate, 
bigoted,  and  contemptuous  of  the  Christian  religion  as 
they  expected  to  find  them,  assumed  such  a  haughty  atti- 
tude towards  the  missionaries  that  they  feared  few 
would  be  found  willing  to  listen  to  any  message  that 
came  through  the  lips  of  a  Christian  foreigner,  until 


IN  THE  DELTA  89 

some  political  upheaval  should  force  upon  them  the  un- 
welcome truth  that  the  Mohammedan  races  are  no  longer 
the  world's  conquerors.  The  Copts  were  few  and  unin- 
fluential,  leavened  by  the  evils  of  Moslem  life,  wedded 
to  the  superstitions  and  ceremonies  that  were  all  that 
remained  to  them  of  their  ancient  Christianity,  and  sus- 
picious of  Protestants,  whom  they  had  been  taught  to 
regard  as  worse  than  infidels.  There  were,  of  course, 
exceptions  to  the  rule,  exceptions  that  make  any  gen- 
eralisation seem  a  travesty  of  the  truth,  and  encouraged 
the  missionaries  in  sowing  their  seed ;  yet  not  the  most 
sanguine  soul  could  see  in  the  field  any  promise  of  a 
speedy  and  fruitful  harvest. 

Almost  a  year  later  Mr.  Hogg  was  again  on  the  Nile 
to  undertake  a  more  extended  tour,  with  his  family  and 
two  native  colporteurs,  in  a  region  of  the  country  he 
had  not  yet  visited.  The  move  was  rendered  possible 
by  an  addition  to  the  mission  force,  and  by  the  partial 
success  that  his  own  efforts  to  train  workers  had  already 
attained.  A  prolonged  and  feverish  onslaught  on  his 
clerical  tasks  cleared  his  desk  of  all  arrears  and  his  con- 
science of  all  claims,  while  Rev.  Andrew  Watson,  his 
new  brother-missionary,  could,  along  with  the  Egyptian 
workers,  fill  the  breach  caused  by  his  temporary  absence 
from  Alexandria. 

This  time  he  did  not  even  pretend  that  he  was  planning 
a  holiday,  and  yet  there  was  within  him  something  of  the 
holiday  spirit.  The  six  hundred  miles  of  watery  highway 
between  Cairo  and  Assuan  stretched  alluringly  before 
him  with  two  unbroken  months  of  congenial  work.  Be- 
hind lay  a  year  in  which  bookshop,  custom  house,  trav- 
ellers, reports,  accounts,  school  supervision,  and  secular 
classes  had  jostled  and  fought  for  pre-eminence.  He 
turned    with   relish    to   a   long-lost   privilege — a   single 


90       AT  THE  HEART  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

clearly  defined  duty  on  which  to  concentrate  all  his 
strength  and  mind. 

Life  on  a  Nile-boat  has  a  charm  all  its  own.  There 
is  a  subtle  witchery  in  the  river  that  awakens  in  the 
traveller  a  love  for  it  beyond  the  bounds  of  cold  reason. 
A  stretch  of  muddy  water  flowing  day  after  day  between 
flat  banks  of  deep  stoneless  earth  and,  at  a  varying  dis- 
tance averaging  seven  miles  from  range  to  range,  ever 
the  same  low  limestone  hills,  rocky  and  bare, — what  ele- 
ments of  beauty  can  lurk  in  such  monotonous  scenery? 
But  the  tones  of  the  picture  are  as  variable  as  an  opal. 
River,  hills,  and  sky  pass  through  mystic  transformations 
of  colour  from  the  first  glimmer  of  dawn  till  evening 
falls  and  the  tender  after-glow  vanishes,  conquered  by 
the  silver  sheen  of  the  moon.  The  passing  glimpses  of 
the  life  upon  the  banks  remain  unendingly  picturesque, 
however  poor  and  ugly  a  sober  judgment  may  declare 
that  life  to  be,  while  the  river  silence  and  the  river 
sounds,  the  lapping  waves  and  the  moving  oars,  the  boat- 
men's songs  and  calls  from  the  passing  craft  please  the 
ear  with  unfamiliar  music,  harmonising  strangely  with 
the  scene. 

But  perhaps  the  chief  magic  in  the  river  is  in  the 
past,  with  which  it  is  inextricably  mingled : 

"  It  flows  through  old  hushed  Egypt  and  its  sands. 
Like  some  grave  mighty  thought  threading  a  dream, 
And  times  and  things,  as  in  that  vision,  seem 
Keeping  along  it  their  eternal  stands." 

For  without  the  Nile  there  would  have  been  no  Egypt, 
no  records  of  "  vanished  civilisations  mirrored  for  an 
instant  in  this  ever-flowing  stream,"  records  that  history 
has  been  writing  on  her  banks  for  six  thousand  years. 
All  would  be  desert  and  the  silence  of  the  grave. 


EGYPTIAN    RIVER    BOATS 


"THE    IBIS,"    THE    MISSIOX    BOAT 


THE  VILLAGES  91 

When  we  look  out  on  a  river  that  for  sixty  centuries 
has  wended  its  historic  way  through  the  mazes  of  the 
past  to  reach  us  to-day,  a  river  that  for  three  thousand 
miles  has  been  travelling  northward  from  its  great  lake- 
home  in  the  heart  of  the  continent  to  give  Egypt  life, 
is  it  any  wonder  if  the  stretch  of  waters  weaves  a  spell 
over  our  imagination,  and  colour,  sound,  and  thought  lull 
the  traveller  into  a  dream? 

"  And  then  we  wake 
And  hear  the  fruitful  stream  lapsing  along 
'Twixt  villages,  and  think  how  we  shall  take 
Our  own  calm  journey  on  for  human  sake." 

It  is  the  villages  and  towns  that  call  us  back  to  life, 
and  the  missionary  had  to  pass  a  thousand  of  these  before 
he  reached  the  limit  of  his  journey.  Raised  above  the 
level  of  the  plain  to  be  safe  from  the  annual  inundation, 
half-hidden  among  clustering  palms,  their  outline  often 
broken  by  dome  and  minaret,  they  looked  attractive  in 
the  distance,  and  made  a  lovely  picture  when  mirrored 
in  the  water  and  glorified  by  a  sunset  sky.  But  at  close 
quarters  their  beauty  vanished  like  a  mirage,  and  the 
sordid  reality  was  revealed  in  the  dirt  and  disorder  of 
poor  and  ruinous  dwellings,  their  reeking  odours,  and 
squalid,  stagnating  life.  Their  human  interest  was 
too  keen  for  the  traveller  to  preserve  always  a 
"  calm "  heart  as  he  faced  the  problem  of  their 
need.  Sixty-three  of  them  he  visited  during  his 
tour,  the  distance  traversed,  inclusive  of  the  return 
journey,  being  about  i,i6o  miles  by  boat  and  200 
on  foot  or  by  donkey.  He  "  sold  Scriptures  in  forty 
places ;  read  and  expounded  them  in  fifty,  held  a  formal 
service  in  seven,  had  conversations  on  religious  subjects 


92       AT  THE  HEART  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

with  sixty-two  Coptic  priests,  forty  or  fifty  monks,  and 
two  bishops ;  and  left  three  colporteurs  at  diflferent  points 
to  carry  forward  the  work  after  his  departure."  The 
volumes  sold  numbered  430,  and  the  proceeds  amounted 
to  $115.  Everywhere  he  received  from  the  Copts  a  re- 
spectful hearing  and  an  urgent  invitation  to  remain.  At 
one  place  the  men  deferred  payment  for  the  Bibles  bought 
to  ensure  a  second  visit  on  the  return  journey.  He  thus 
describes  his  methods : 


"  I  always  studiously  endeavoured  to  avoid  discussing 
minor  points  of  doctrine  until  I  had  first  presented  them 
with  a  short  and  simple  exposition  of  the  Divine  plan 
of  salvation  as  revealed  in  the  Gospel.  By  this  means 
their  prejudices  were  removed,  their  respect  was  gained, 
and  they  were  prepared  to  give  a  favourable  hearing  to 
whatever  else  we  might  have  to  say;  whereas  had  we 
.  .  .  launched  with  imprudent  haste  into  discussions 
about  Transubstantiation,  Baptismal  Regeneration,  Auri- 
cular Confession,  the  worship  of  pictures,  Fasts,  etc..  it 
is  more  than  probable  that  the  impression  produced  on 
their  minds  would  have  been  that  the  Protestants  are 
just  what  the  priests  represent  them  to  be — little  better 
than  infidels. 

"  To  the  simple  Gospel  all  expressed  unfeigned  assent, 
often  adding :  '  Oh,  that  he  would  remain  with  us ! '  or 
'  Oh,  that  our  priests  would  preach  to  us ! '  but  when 
I  proceeded  to  contrast  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel  with 
their  perverted  system  and  showed  them  how  far  they 
had  fallen  from  the  primitive  faith  of  the  Church — 
'  some  mocked,  and  others  said :  "  We  will  hear  thee 
again  of  this  matter."  '  Yet  it  was  often  evident  that  the 
word  had  taken  effect  on  some,  and  these  generally  the 
most  intelligent  men  in  the  village." 


It  was  not,  however,  only  to  the  Copts  that  the  mis- 
sionary presented  his  message.     Whenever  he  could  se- 


MOSLEM  AND  COPT  98 

cure  a  hearing  among  Moslems,  or  distribute  amongst 
them  Christian  literature,  he  was  quick  to  avail  himself 
of  the  opportunity,  and  he  tells  of  interesting  conversa- 
tions with  the  head  men  of  certain  villages,  and  of  a 
singular  interview  with  the  Imam  of  the  Mosque  of 
Bahjoura,  who  purchased  a  Gospel,  saying  that  he  wished 
to  compare  it  with  the  Koran  "  to  see  wherein  they  agree 
and  wherein  they  differ,  and  discern,  if  possible,  which 
is  true  and  which  is  false." 

But  the  door  to  the  majority  was  still  locked  and 
barred,  and  he  remarks :  "  The  great  stumbling-block  in 
the  way  of  doing  much  for  them  is  the  Coptic  Church. 
Mohammedans  have  not  the  means  at  present  of  know- 
ing what  true  Christianity  is." 

In  the  light  of  this  fact,  all  effort  for  the  regeneration 
of  the  Copts  acquired  a  unique  value.  He  saw  in  it 
the  forging  of  a  key  that  must  eventually  unlock  the 
closed  portal  of  Islam,  and  prepare  the  way  for  a  more 
direct  and  concentrated  effort  to  secure  the  entrance  he 
coveted  amongst  Egypt's  millions.  If  we  are  to  view 
the  work  from  this  standpoint,  and  follow  his  efforts 
with  full  sympathy  and  understanding,  we  must  look 
through  his  eyes  at  the  situation  that  confronted  him 
fifty  years  ago,  remembering  as  we  do  so  the  changes 
that  the  interval  has  wrought. 

The  Copts  seemed  to  him  to  bear  the  same  relation 
to  the  salvation  of  the  Moslems  that  the  Jews  of  Christ's 
day  bore  to  the  salvation  of  the  Gentiles.  Their  past 
shone  luminous  in  the  light  of  that  thought.  God  had 
preserved  them  as  He  had  preserved  the  Jews,  for  a 
great  mission,  and  the  time  being  now  ripe  He  had  sent 
His  servants  to  the  accomplishment  of  His  purpose. 
Can  any  one  who  has  read  their  pathetic  history  and  felt 


94       AT  THE  HEART  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

the  wonder  of  their  continued  existence  feel  surprise  at 
such  a  view  ?    Who  were  these  Copts  ? 

Racially  they  were  heirs  to  all  the  greatness  and  the 
fame  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  from  whom,  like  most 
of  their  Moslem  fellow-countrymen,  they  had  descended 
by  direct  lino  of  birth,  but,  unlike  them,  with  blood  pure 
of  all  admixture  through  intermarriage,  whether  with 
conquering  Arab,  Circassian,  or  Turk.  Ecclesiastically 
they  were  heirs  to  the  glory  of  Egypt's  early  Christianity, 
when  she  wore  the  halo  of  martyrdom,  gave  birth  to 
Christian  heroes,  and  played  a  ruling  part  in  the  life 
and  thought  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  Historically  they 
were  a  faithful  remnant  who,  in  the  dark  days  that  fol- 
lowed the  Mohammedan  conquest  of  the  Seventh  Century, 
refused  to  buy  peace  and  prosperity  by  accepting  their 
conquerors'  creed,  and  through  twelve  hundred  years  of 
obloquy  and  cruel  oppression  clung  tenaciously  to  the 
Church  of  their  fathers. 

And  what  had  they  become?  By  their  picture-worship 
they  had  become  the  stumbling-block  of  the  Moslems. 
Their  religious  leaders  were  "  epistles  of  Christ "  in 
whose  corrupted  text  might  be  wrongly  read  Christ's 
license  to  drunkenness  and  vice;  while  the  errors  that 
had  crept  into  their  creed  set  the  seal  of  Christ's  name 
upon  a  religion  in  which  salvation  was  divorced  from 
sanctification,  and  purchased  by  pious  ejaculations,  the 
use  of  the  sacraments,  fastings,  alms,  and  the  interces- 
sion of  Mary  and  the  saints.  The  Moslem  could  not 
pierce  through  such  incrusting  ceremonies  to  discover 
the  true  spirit  of  the  Gospel.  Considering  salvation 
already  an  easy  purchase,  he  could  see  nought  to  gain 
by  the  adoption  of  Christianity  save  freedom  to 
drink   arrack  *   and   to   eat   the   accursed    flesh   of   the 

*  An  intoxicating  drink  made  from  the  juice  of  dates. 


THE  COPTS  96 

pigs  that  wallowed  amongst  the  mire  and  refuse  of 
the  streets. 

And  if  we  ask  how  the  Coptic  Church,  with  so  fair 
a  history,  had  sunk  so  low,  the  answer  is  not  far  to  seek, 
and  carries  its  own  warning  to  us  all.  Her  people  had 
lost  their  Bible.  It  had  been  entombed  for  them  in  a 
language  once  their  own,  long  since  forgotten.  Only 
now  through  the  efforts  of  strangers  in  the  nineteenth 
century  was  it  being  given  back  to  them  in  Arabic,  their 
adopted  tongue.  Meanwhile  they  had  been  sorely  tried, 
and  the  soul  that  does  not  simply  "  trust  in  God  and  do 
the  right "  is  submerged  by  sorrow,  instead  of  being 
borne  by  its  waves  to  higher  levels.  We  have  not  always 
stood  life's  test  so  well  that  we  can  marvel  or  condemn 
when  we  find  that  instead  of  being  perfected  by  suffering 
they  had  sunk  under  it,  injured  morally  as  well  as 
physically  by  their  ordeal. 

It  was  little  wonder,  indeed,  that  the  race  had  deteri- 
orated. For  centuries  freedom  and  safety  were  matters 
of  purchase,  while  to  appear  wealthy  was  to  court  ruin. 
They  strove  to  adjust  themselves  to  their  circumstances 
by  worldly  prudence.  The  gaining  and  hoarding  of 
money  had  become  in  all  classes  the  prime  aim  in  life, 
its  concealment  the  path  of  wisdom,  lying  and  deceit 
their  weapons  of  defence.  Not  so  are  nobility  and  honour 
nourished.  Still  more  fatal  was  another  adjustment.  To 
protect  their  women  from  the  dangers  that  threatened 
them  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  ancient  freedom,  they 
adopted  for  them  the  Mohammedan  custom  of  seclusion. 
Close  upon  the  heels  of  the  new  custom  followed  the 
taint  of  the  attitude  of  mind  which  it  embodied.  Their 
women,  degraded  by  both  custom  and  attitude,  soon  sank 
in  the  main  to  the  level  of  man's  contempt,  and  the  life 
of  the  people  was  poisoned  at  its  source. 


96       AT  THE  HEART  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

As  for  the  religion  that  should  have  kept  their  stand- 
ards high,  its  hold  upon  the  majority  was  the  grip  of  a 
dead  hand.  While  even  in  the  darkest  age  there  lived 
and  loved  a  chosen  few  "  whom  God  whispered  in  the 
ear,"  the  Coptic  Church  had,  for  the  most  part,  preserved 
her  primitive  Christianity  as  ancient  Egypt  preserved  her 
Pharaohs,  embalming  the  body  when  the  living  soul  es- 
caped. She  clung  to  a  body  of  ancient  ritual  which  was 
no  longer  animated  by  the  spirit  of  Christ  and  in  which 
the  heart  of  love  beat  no  more.  Even  the  outward  forms 
of  her  worship  and  ceremony  had  grown  tawdry  and 
uninspiring,  and  were,  like  the  mummied  human  frame, 
bereft  of  force  and  beauty  and  wrapped  in  rags  of  ig- 
norance and  superstition. 

Yet  when  all  has  been  said  that  truth  may  demand 
as  to  the  difference  between  a  mummied  body  and  a 
living  man,  an  Egyptian  mummy  must  always  remain 
a  marvel  to  the  thinking  mind.  For  in  a  very  real  sense 
it  has  conquered  the  forces  of  dissolution.  Through 
this  very  fiesh  the  blood  once  throbbed,  from  behind 
those  closed  eyelids  thought  flashed  forth,  and  while 
men  in  their  millions  have  crumbled  into  dust,  this  body, 
changed  indeed  but  defying  decay,  has  slept  calmly 
through  the  rise  and  fall  of  empires.  The  fact  strikes 
upon  the  senses  with  a  suggestion  of  the  miraculous. 

It  was  with  feelings  akin  to  these  that  the  missionary 
looked  back  on  the  history  of  the  Copts,  and  in  the 
miracle  of  their  mummied  Church  he  read  the  promise 
of  a  second  and  greater  miracle  that  would  mean  the 
regeneration  of  Islam.  The  Coptic  Church  would  hear 
the  voice  that  had  called  to  Lazarus :  "  Come  forth !  " 
and,  rising  from  the  sleep  of  ages,  would  cast  aside  hef 
grave-clothes  and  gird  herself  for  the  work  of  the  Lord. 
In  the  joy  of  a  new  life  she  would  obey  her  Master's 


THE  MISSION  OF  THE  COPTS  97 

command,  "  Love  your  enemies,  do  good  to  them  that 
hate  you,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  pray  for  them  that 
despitefully  use  you,"  and  rising  to  the  full  height  of 
her  calling,  would  spend  herself  as  a  missionary-church 
in  the  loving  service  of  her  persecutors.  Then,  and  not 
till  then,  would  the  heart  of  Islam  be  touched.  Let  them 
see  a  living  Christianity !  Let  them  see  a  miracle  of 
resurrection  followed  by  a  miracle  of  Christian  forgive- 
ness, and  the  Mohammedans  of  Egypt  would  accept  the 
salvation  offered  them  by  God  in  Christ,  enter  the  king- 
dom, and  unite  with  the  Copts  in  crowning  the  despised 
'Isa  King  and  Lord. 

Was  it  a  fatuous  dream,  or  a  prophet's  vision,  a  mirage 
in  the  desert,  or  an  attainable  peak  in  that  "  land  of  far 
distances  "  that  the  Christian  beholds  as  he  follows  his 
Lord  on  the  highway  of  duty? 

The  missionary  put  the  vision  to  the  test.  No  dream 
can  stand  the  calm  judgment  of  common  sense,  but  this 
dream,  instead  of  revealing  itself  as  fantastic,  gave 
definiteness  and  coherence  to  his  schemes,  and  the  most 
mathematical  mind  could  not  but  approve  the  sanity  of 
the  campaign  to  which  it  guided.  What  were  four  men 
to  four  million  ?  But  the  Copts  numbered  one  to  fourteen 
of  the  army  of  Islam,  and  four  men  by  God's  help  might 
rouse  a  slumbering  Church  of  three  hundred  thousand 
souls  already  stirring  in  its  sleep. 

From  a  dream  a  man  must  awaken  in  the  clear  light  of 
day,  but  the  faith  that  a  mummied  Church  would  answer 
the  call  of  God  and  solve  the  problem  of  Egypt's  redemp- 
tion, if  born  of  a  dream  on  the  whispering  river,  yet 
glowed  steadily  on  through  the  disappointments,  delays, 
and  labours  of  a  lifetime,  and  was  still  strong  within 
him  when  within  a  year  of  its  close  he  faced  a  Scotch 
audience  for  the  last  time,  to  give  it  an  account  of  his 


98       AT  THE  HEART  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

work.  That  the  fulfilment  of  his  vision  tarried  did  not 
prove  the  distant  view^  a  mirage  or  the  peak  unattainable, 
but  that  God  had  found  His  people  unwilling  in  the  day 
of  His  power  and  that  few  had  yet  been  ready  to  share 
the  missionary's  vision  and  faith. 


VII 

IN  THE  CITY  OF  THE  PATRIARCH 

The  best  men  always  find  it  hard  to  withhold  sympathy 
from  any  hoary  fabric  of  belief,  and  any  venerated  sys- 
tem of  government,  that  have  cherished  a  certain  order 
and  shed  even  a  ray  of  the  faintest  dawn,  among  the 
violences  and  the  darkness  of  the  race. 

— Lord  Morley. 

Necessity  is  laid  upon  me;  for  woe  is  unto  me,  if  I 
preach  not  the  gospel, 

—St.  Paul. 

THE  life  that  faced  Mr.  Hogg  on  his  return  to 
Alexandria  held  a  promise  of  relief  for  the  fu- 
ture. His  burdens  were  henceforth  to  be  shared 
and  lightened  by  a  colleague  w^ho,  in  his  absence,  had 
proved  himself  "  able  to  do  all  but  preach  Arabic  ser- 
mons," and  of  whose  worth  he  wrote  to  America  in 
terms  redolent  of  missionary  greed,  "  Oh,  that  you  would 
send  us  out  six  Watsons !  "  But  as  so  often  happens  on 
the  mission-field,  the  needs  of  another  station  soon  broke 
up  the  happy  partnership. 

Cairo  was,  in  1862,  in  the  throes  of  a  great  emergency. 
In  the  spring  a  large  building  had  been  secured  from 
the  Viceroy  by  the  help  of  Mr.  Thayer,  the  American 
Consul  General,  after  indefatigable  labours  on  the  part 
of  Mr.  Lansing  and  others,*  and  all  through  the  summer 
months  Rev.  Mr.  Lansing  and  Rev.  Mr.  Ewing  filled  the 
unaccustomed  role  of  contractors,  standing  in  the  dust 

*  Notable  among  these  was  the  firm  of  Tod,  Miiller  &  Co., 

lifelong  friends  of  the  mission. 

99 


100      IN  THE  CITY  OF  THE  PATRIARCH 

and  heat,  among  masons,  carpenters,  and  labourers  of 
every  sort,  overseeing  the  repairs  and  alterations  neces- 
sary to  fit  the  place  for  its  new  and  varied  uses.  Mean- 
while the  building,  in  its  prominent  position  at  the  head 
of  the  Muski,  accomplished  with  startling  rapidity  what 
the  missionaries  had  for  seven  years  been  labouring 
towards ;  it  awakened  the  interest  and  curiosity  of  the 
city  and  drew  crowds  within  sound  of  the  Gospel.  In  the 
new  quarters,  the  Sabbath  audience  immediately  doubled ; 
within  a  month  the  school  roll  increased  from  50  to  200; 
and  visitors  flocked  to  see  the  missionaries  at  all  hours 
of  the  day. 

Success  brought  joy,  but  a  joy  so  mingled  with  wor- 
ries and  overwork  that  Mr.  Lansing's  health  threatened 
to  give  way  under  the  strain,  and  it  was  decided  to  borrow 
help  from  Alexandria.  In  August  Mr.  Hogg  was  sent 
for  and  he  arrived  none  too  soon.  Mr.  Lansing  was 
soon  lying  at  death's  door,  his  life  almost  despaired  of, 
and  though  he  recovered  sufficiently  to  winter  on  the 
Nile  and  engage  in  evangelistic  work,  it  was  not  till  he 
had  been  absent  for  nine  months  in  America  that  he  was 
able  to  endure  without  injury  the  more  confining  work 
of  the  city. 

When  Mr.  Hogg  arrived  in  Cairo  with  his  wife  and 
child,  a  bed,  a  chair,  a  bath,  and  a  harmonium,  it  was 
with  no  idea  of  remaining  permanently.  The  presence 
of  a  harmonium  among  the  essentials  for  his  sojourn 
in  Cairo  merely  indicates  the  place  music  held  in  his 
heart  and  work.  He  had  come  at  his  brethren's  bidding 
to  relieve  them  of  the  burden  of  the  school's  abnormal 
growth,  reorganise  the  institution  in  its  new  dimensions, 
and  watch  over  it  for  a  season,  until,  with  machinery 
in  running  order,  it  might  be  re-committed  without  dis- 
aster to  the  partial  oversight  of  an  overtaxed  man.    As 


ARRIVAL  IN  CAIRO  101 

late  as  December  he  was  still  dreaming  of  new  plans 
for  work  in  Alexandria  to  be  rendered  possible  on  his 
return  by  Mr.  Watson's  co-operation;  but  in  February, 
1863,  his  location  was  formally  changed  to  Cairo,  and 
the  family  were  once  more  installed  in  a  home  of  their 
own. 

He  had,  however,  almost  from  his  first  arrival,  taken 
his  place  as  a  regular  Cairo  missionary.  The  babel  of 
labourers  was  over  and  the  alterations  complete.  Mr. 
Lansing's  other  responsibilities,  however,  naturally  fell 
to  the  lot  of  the  stop-gap,  even  while  he  tackled  the 
special  problem  of  the  school,  as  Mr.  Ewing,  besides 
being  in  charge  of  the  English  services  and  the  book- 
shop, had  still  the  new  missionary's  task  of  Arabic  study 
to  hamper  and  engage  him. 

His  new  sphere  filled  him  with  enthusiasm.  To  have 
200  pupils  with  room  for  150  more  was  a  novel  experi- 
ence, while  the  shortage  in  teachers  was  too  familiar  a 
condition  to  breed  dismay.  The  pupils  were  gradually 
classified,  and  an  evening  class  opened  for  the  teachers, 
to  fit  them  for  the  charge  of  such  classes  as  had  mean- 
while to  be  conducted  by  the  missionary  himself.  Per- 
haps his  greatest  joy  was  "  the  privilege  of  spending  an 
hour  a  day  in  studying  the  Bible  with  a  hundred  boys 
and  six  or  eight  teachers,  with  strangers  constantly  drop- 
ping in."  For  in  all  his  school  work  he  carried  out  to 
the  letter  his  own  advice  : 

"  Train  your  teachers  well.  Be  much  in  the  school. 
Teach  the  Scripture  lessons  yourself  in  the  presence,  if 
possible,  of  both  teachers  and  scholars.  Go  from  your 
closet  to  the  school  desk  and  throw  your  whole  soul  into 
your  exhortations  and  prayers,  without  sparing  your 
strength  for  other  work  that  may  be  before  you  in  the 
course  of  the  day." 


102     IN  THE  CITY  OF  THE  PATRIARCH 

And  the  result  that  he  foretold  was  according  to  his 
faith.  Out  of  thirteen  who  sat  down  at  the  Lord's  table 
for  the  first  time  at  the  last  Communion  service  of  the 
year,  seven  were  the  direct  product  of  the  school.  It 
was  in  truth  "  no  failure,"  but  "  a  nursery  of  young 
plants   for  the  King's  garden." 

He  preached  three  times  a  week,  his  Sabbath  morning 
audience  numbering  130  to  150,  and  his  Wednesday 
evening  service,  meant  specially  for  the  young,  attract- 
ing usually  about  200,  most  of  whom  were  young  men, 
boys,  and  girls. 

In  Cairo,  his  help  was  not  needed  in  the  girls'  school, 
which  was  under  the  charge  of  Miss  Dales  and  Miss 
Hart.  He  escaped  also  from  the  toil  of  the  custom 
house  and  from  personal  superintendence  of  the  book 
depot,  but,  as  he  was  still  general  treasurer  for  the  mis- 
sion, the  labour  of  accounts,  reports,  and  correspondence 
was  in  no  way  lessened.  Hundreds  of  payments  and 
receipts  had  to  be  recorded  by  him  weekly,  in  which  all 
varieties  of  coinage  had  been  used,  those  of  Syria,  India, 
America,  Britain,  and  almost  every  country  in  Europe. 
The  fluctuating  values  of  such  currencies  had  to  be 
noted,  and  to  reduce  each  entry  at  the  last  to  the  one 
fixed  standard  of  money  in  which  a  final  account  had  to 
be  rendered  was  no  child's  play.  "  When  Presbytery 
met  towards  the  end  of  December,"  he  writes,  "  I  im- 
agined that  one  week  would  suffice  for  me  to  square  up 
the  accounts  and  draw  up  the  Financial  Report ;  I  had 
to  spend  300  hours  of  close  application  before  I  was 
ready  to  put  a  pen  to  the  Report " — and  this  within  the 
space  of  35  days,  while  teaching  and  preaching  as  usual. 
It  is  probable  that  in  such  matters  he  did  more  than  was 
required  of  him,  paying  the  full  cost  of  the  fastidious 
exactness  that  characterised  him  in  the  keeping  of  public 


IN  QUARANTINE  103 

accounts ;  and  as  he  sensibly  remarks,  "  As  to  this  secular 
work,  somebody  has  to  attend  to  it.  Unless  we  are  sup- 
planted by  a  staff  of  angels,  it  cannot  be  dispensed  with." 

It  was  in  March,  1863,  with  household  furniture  just 
arrived  from  Alexandria,  and  but  two  rooms  of  the  new 
home  ready  for  use,  that  he  was  suddenly  withdrawn 
from  his  labours  and  found  time  to  write  the  reminis- 
cences of  his  boyhood  days  that  have  preserved  them 
from  oblivion.  Mrs.  Hogg  was  laid  low  with  an  attack 
of  smallpox,  and  her  husband  quarantined  with  her  to 
act  the  part  of  nurse. 

In  many  letters  written  during  their  seclusion,  there 
are  glimpses  of  the  compensations  that  the  experience 
held  for  the  two  whom  work  had  so  often  stinted  of 
each  other's  companionship,  and  while  alone  together 
from  morning  till  night,  the  love  and  sympathy  of  their 
mission  friends  still  reached  them  in  unnumbered  ways, 
so  that,  as  a  mere  unveiling  of  the  beauties  of  human 
loving-kindness,  they  felt  the  stroke  to  have  been  amply 
justified.  The  nurse  felt  also  that  he  had  been  in  per- 
sonal need  of  such  an  experience,  and  that  God,  before 
re-committing  to  his  hands  his  many  responsibilities,  was 
seeking  to  teach  him  that  he  was  not  indispensable,  but 
"  a  mere  instrument  in  the  hand  of  a  Master-worker 
whose  resources  it  hath  not  entered  into  the  heart  of 
man  to  conceive." 

The  disease  spread  no  further  in  the  mission  circle, 
and  on  the  invalid  herself  it  left  hardly  a  trace.  On 
April  21  the  prisoners  were  released  from  confinement, 
and  their  gratitude  needing  some  expression,  they  added 
a  thank-offering  of  $50  to  their  usual  mission  contribu- 
tions, though  the  threatened  reduction  of  salary  was 
growing  ever  more  imminent  and  bankruptcy  hanging 
like  a  cloud  on  the  mission  horizon. 


104     IN  THE  CITY  OF  THE  PATRIARCH 

Other  clouds  hung  nearer,  however,  soon  to  burst  over 
the  cause  they  had  at  heart.  There  had  been  mutterings 
of  a  coming  storm.  Efforts  had  already  been  made  to 
bribe  the  teachers  at  the  mission  school  to  desert  their 
posts  and  to  draft  their  scholars  to  other  institutions. 
But  it  was  not  till  the  beginning  of  June  that  the  new 
Coptic  Patriarch  frankly  opened  hostilities.  This  turn 
of  events  was  a  disappointment  to  the  missionary.  Not 
to  make  the  Coptic  Church  United  Presbyterian  but  to 
make  her  Christian  was  the  great  essential  in  the  mis- 
sion scheme  that  had  taken  such  clear  outline  in  his  mind 
during  his  river  journey,  and  he  had  treasured  a  hope 
that  this  might  be  accomplished  without  forcing  the  mis- 
sion into  the  position  of  an  apparently  opposing  camp. 
By  a  wide  sale  of  Arabic  Scriptures  and  by  plain  preach- 
ing in  the  vernacular  the  truth  had  been  clearly  pro- 
claimed north  and  south  to  laity  and  clergy  alike,  and 
the  widespread  hunger  and  ready  response  that  had 
awaited  the  message  suggested  the  possibility  of  a  mass 
movement  among  the  Copts  in  which  such  a  demand 
would  be  made  for  a  purer  creed,  purer  morals,  and 
purer  practices  that  those  in  power  would  be  forced  to 
make  the  needful  changes.  It  was  a  hope  that  had  been 
cherished  by  the  Anglican  Church  through  disappointing 
years.  But  though  the  Anglican  missionary,  limiting  his 
appeal  to  the  Coptic  clergy,  had  failed  to  reach  the  goal, 
why  should  not  the  American  missionaries  succeed,  with 
their  more  effective  policy  of  preaching  to  the  people? 

Mr.  Hogg  had  never  ceased  to  follow  with  mingled 
anxiety  and  gratitude  the  indications  of  spreading  inter- 
est all  over  the  country,  but  the  possibility  it  had  sug- 
gested was  not  one  to  be  published  on  the  housetops. 
This  need  for  cautious  silence  makes  it  impossible  at 
this  date  to  discover  to  what  extent  his  colleagues  shared 


THE  COMING  STORM  105 

his  hope  or  how  soon  it  was  abandoned.  "  We  do  not 
speak  of  it,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  except  in  whispers 
in  our  closets,  and  I  pray  you  to  do  the  same." 

A  mass  movement  towards  reform  could  not  be  the 
work  of  a  day,  and  while  it  was  still  but  a  glimmering 
light  on  the  horizon,  the  missionaries  had  of  necessity 
received  into  their  communion  the  converts  who  sought 
to  join  them,  the  ancient  Church  providing  no  oppor- 
tunity for  such  to  follow  the  dictates  of  awakened  con- 
science in  worship  and  custom.  That  they  might  be  the 
better  trained,  a  small  congregation  had  been  organised 
in  the  month  of  January,  and  it  was  hoped  that  this 
little  evangelical  community  would  present  to  the  Coptic 
Church  what  that  Church  when  regenerated  would  pre- 
sent to  Moslem  Egypt,  a  human  pattern  of  true  Chris- 
tianity, pure,  spiritual,  and  attractive. 

Meanwhile,  however,  news  of  the  spread  of  evangelical 
sentiments  in  distant  districts  began  to  reach  the  ears 
of  the  Patriarch,  and  the  very  success  that  had  seemed  to 
promise  a  peaceful  reform  made  peace  no  longer  possi- 
ble. Such  reforms  as  the  people  desired  would  have 
meant  to  an  inefficient  and  ignorant  clergy  a  loss  of  posi- 
tion and  power  to  which  they  would  not  yield  without 
a  struggle.  Distrust,  jealousy,  fear,  hatred,  violence — 
these  were  the  steps  that  marked  the  progress  of  feeling 
in  high  quarters. 

It  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the  Coptic  hierarchy 
would  appreciate  the  aims  and  motives  of  the  mission- 
aries, and  we  cannot  wonder  that  a  work  which  the  most 
loyal  native  supporters  of  the  National  Church  now  ac- 
knowledge to  have  been  to  it  an  inestimable  blessing, 
proved  as  unwelcome  on  its  first  appearance  as  do  most 
blessings  that  reach  us  in  disguise.  As  early  as  March  7, 
Mr.  Hogg  wrote  to  Mr.  Watson :  "  It  seems  now  as  if 


106      IN  THE  CITY  OF  THE  PATRIARCH 

there  is  no  course  left  us  with  the  Coptic  hierarchy  but 
war,"  and  the  final  stage  in  the  growing  antagonism  was 
reached  three  months  later  when  the  men  of  the  mission 
staff  were  scattered — Mr.  Lansing  on  his  homeward  jour- 
ney, Mr.  Ewing  in  Alexandria,  Mr.  Watson  a  suffering 
prisoner  with  acute  ophthalmia,  and  but  one  of  them  left 
to  face  the  storm  at  the  metropolis. 

It  burst  with  sudden  fury.  All  were  publicly  pro- 
scribed who  should  send  their  children  to  the  mission 
school,  visit  the  bookshop,  read  its  books,  have  friendly 
relations  with  the  missionaries  and  their  "  perverts,"  or 
attend  their  meetings.  Disobedience  would  be  visited 
with  excommunication,  no  vague  threat,  since  its  evil 
consequences  were  not  confined  to  an  unseen  world.  The 
missionaries  were  described  as  "  the  enemies  of  all  reli- 
gion, without  priests  or  sacraments  or  ceremonies  or  any- 
thing but  a  Bible  they  did  not  understand,  wolves  in 
sheep's  clothing  who  had  scattered  the  seeds  of  heresy 
all  over  the  country,  and  whose  proselytes  were  twofold 
more  the  children  of  hell  than  themselves." 

The  Patriarch  in  his  vigorous  action  had  the  support 
of  the  leading  laymen  of  the  Church,  whom  he  had  called 
together  in  council.  He  had  not  himself,  indeed,  suf- 
ficient education  either  to  compose  or  to  read  the  edict 
described,  but  it  worded  for  him  accurately  the  spirit  of 
his  resolves.  By  the  advice  and  aid  of  his  helpers,  with 
the  additional  assistance  of  a  grant  from  Ismail  Pasha, 
the  new  Viceroy,  the  Coptic  school  was  transformed  and 
enlarged.  Here  to  invite  was  to  command  attendance. 
Such  parents  as  at  first,  encouraged  by  the  missionaries, 
ventured  to  risk  the  wrath  of  the  Church,  were  visited 
in  their  homes  by  the  priests  and  browbeaten  by  their 
anathemas  into  submission.  The  mission  school  lan- 
guished.   Soon  the  roll  had  fallen  to  a  third  of  its  original 


A  VISIT  TO  THE  PATRIARCH  107 

length.  Efforts  were  redoubled  to  capture  the  teachers. 
In  some  cases  triple  salary  was  offered,  or  government 
posts  substituted  as  a  bait  where  employment  in  the 
Coptic  school  failed  to  entice.  To  their  honour  be  it  said, 
most  of  the  teachers  remained  faithful  to  the  friends 
whose  worth  they  had  tested,  and  were  not  to  be  bought 
by  offers  of  position  or  money. 

With  the  schoolboys  themselves  the  attack  was  more 
direct,  and  school  talk  was  enlivened  by  tales  of  skir- 
mishes by  the  way.  One  boy  after  another  arrived  at 
the  mission  bereft  of  books  or  cap,  or  without  the  loose 
shoes  that  made  running  difficult,  these  articles  having 
been  left  in  the  hands  of  their  would-be  captors,  who 
had  sallied  forth  from  the  patriarchate  to  seize  the  pu- 
pils as  they  passed  and  convey  them  by  force  to  the  rival 
institution. 

This  was  borne  patiently  for  a  time,  but  when  the 
Patriarch's  servants,  growing  bolder,  waylaid  the  boys  at 
the  very  entrance  of  the  mission  school,  the  missionary 
concluded  that  silence  would  soon  savour  of  cowardice, 
and  went  with  the  consul  to  pay  to  his  Holiness  a  visit 
of  polite  remonstrance. 

At  the  outset  all  went  v^ell,  the  Patriarch  being  some- 
what uneasy  in  presence  of  a  guest  whose  lineage  he 
had  so  recently  traced  to  the  devil.  He  had  been  ig- 
norant, he  said,  of  the  officious  zeal  of  his  servants ; 
further  kidnapping  would  be  forbidden.  The  boys,  how- 
ever, were  his,  and  he  had  a  right  to  use  every  other 
means  to  secure  them.  The  subject  was  changed  and 
the  three  men  sipped  coffee  and  talked  with  courteous 
care. 

Not  so,  however,  was  the  visit  to  finish.  "  These 
American  missionaries,"  remarked  the  Consul  pleasantly, 
"  teach  nothing  but  the  pure  Gospel,  and  your  Holiness 


108     IN  THE  CITY  OF  THE  PATRIARCH 

ought  rather  to  feel  grateful  to  them  than  otherwise  for 
the  good  they  are  doing  to  the  children  of  the  Copts 
and  other  sects."  It  was  as  if  a  bomb  had  been  sud- 
denly thrown  in  their  midst.  "  Pure  Gospel !  "  roared 
the  infuriated  Patriarch,  in  a  voice  that  penetrated  far 
and  wide  above  the  din  of  the  surrounding  school-rooms, 
which  had  hitherto  made  conversation  difficult.  "  Have 
the  Americans  alone  got  the  Gospel?  Why  don't  they 
teach  it  to  their  slaves  if  they  have  it?  Why  does 
brother  go  to  war  against  brother  ?  Why  have  they  come 
to  Egypt  with  their  fine  talk  ?  .  .  .  We  had  the  Gospel 
before  America  was  born.  We  don't  need  them  here 
to  teach  us.    We  know  the  Gospel  better  than  they  do." 

The  Patriarch's  loud  indignation  gathered  scores  of 
eavesdroppers,  who  now  crowded  the  windows  surround- 
ing the  court.  More  than  half  of  the  faces  were  familiar 
to  one  of  the  visitors.  They  were  faces  that  had  often 
lighted  up  in  response  as  from  the  school  desk  he  had 
talked  of  the  things  concerning  the  Kingdom,  and  of 
the  way  of  life,  simple  but  strait,  that  has  been  revealed 
and  made  possible  by  Jesus  Christ. 

The  sight  of  the  listening  boys,  with  their  smiles  of 
welcome  and  covert  salaams,  acted  upon  him  like  a  cor- 
dial. It  was  their  future  that  hung  in  the  balance,  and 
before  him  sat  the  man  whose  authority  would  rivet  upon 
them  the  fetters  of  religious  slavery.  He  felt  like  one 
inspired,  his  mouth  filled  with  arguments  made  ready 
for  his  use.  His  picture  of  Egypt  as  it  was  and  Egypt 
as  it  might  become  wrung  from  the  Patriarch  a  reluctant 
admission  that  things  were  not  as  they  should  be,  and 
though  he  still  urged  feebly  that  the  Copts  could  mend 
matters  unaided,  he  had  no  answer  ready  to  the  ques- 
tion, "  Then  when  will  you  begin  ? "  The  listener 
winced  still  further  when  a  third  picture  was  drawn,  a 


A  VISIT  TO  THE  PATRIARCH  109 

picture  of  the  Coptic  Church  of  the  day,  and  of  the 
ignorance,  Sabbath-breaking,  drunkenness,  and  immoral- 
ity of  its  spiritual  guides  throughout  the  country,  and 
with  no  answer  ready  and  no  denial  possible,  he  sought  to 
cover  his  retreat  by  firing  a  volley  of  questions.  "  Why 
do  you  not  worship  the  Holy  Mother  of  God  ?  Why  do 
you  not  reverence  the  Mass?  Why  do  you  call  us  wor- 
shippers of  images  ?    Why  do  you  not  fast  ?  .    .  . " 

If  the  questioner  expected  the  charge  to  be  unwel- 
come, he  was  disappointed.  His  guest  launched  out 
gladly  into  careful  explanations,  thanking  God  in  his 
heart  for  the  unexpected  opportunity,  and  presently  ob- 
jections and  interruptions  ceased,  and  Patriarch,  at- 
tendants, and  eavesdroppers  listened  as  quietly  as  any 
church  audience  while  the  missionary  delivered  the  mes- 
sage that  was  burning  in  his  soul.  "  No  man  cometh 
unto  the  Father  but  by  me."  "  Neither  is  there  salva- 
tion in  any  other."  "  Who  ever  liveth  to  make  interces- 
sion for  us."  "  Stand  fast  therefore  in  the  liberty  where- 
with Christ  hath  made  you  free.''  Thus  was  preached 
the  first  Protestant  sermon  within  the  sacred  precincts 
of  the  Patriarchate. 


VIII 

IN  THE  WAKE  OF  PERSECUTION 

Who  the  thunder  swayeth, 
Who  with  lightning  playeth. 
Whom  the  storm  obeyeth. 
He  ruleth  and  schooleth  both  thee  and  me. 

— J.  S.  Stallybrass. 

And  as  he  passed  over  Penuel  the  sun  rose  upon  him. 

— Genesis  xxxii,  31. 

THE  interview  with  the  Patriarch  seems  to  have 
marked  the  turn  of  the  tide.  In  their  extremity 
the  mission  band  had  been  led  "  to  pray  as  never 
before, — to  wrestle  at  the  throne,  entreating  the  Lord 
for  the  honour  of  His  great  name  to  come  to  the  rescue ;  " 
and  now  their  petitions  became  more  and  more  mingled 
with  thanksgiving  for  answered  prayer.  That  one  of 
the  arrows  shot  by  the  Patriarch's  visitor  had  won  home 
was  evinced  by  the  fact  that,  having  heard  of  a  priest's 
persistent  assertions  that  the  missionaries  circulated  a 
corrupted  version  of  the  Bible,  His  Holiness  so  cursed 
and  berated  the  offender  for  exposing  his  ignorance  be- 
fore Protestants  that  the  poor  man  took  a  week  in  bed 
to  recover  from  the  effects  of  his  fright.  Friendly  rela- 
tions were  gradually  re-established  between  Protestants 
and  Copts,  and  the  former  were  treated  with  respect. 
Pupils  were  no  longer  molested  in  the  streets,  and  one 
by  one  deserters  drifted  back  to  the  school  of  their 
choice.     Before   returning,   they  made  the  reasons   for 

110 


NEW  VITALITY  111 

their  preference  abundantly  clear  to  the  priest  who  super- 
intended the  school  of  the  Patriarch. 

New  signs  of  vitality  appeared  within  the  infant 
Church.  "  When  the  path  of  duty  is  made  clear  to  them, 
they  try  at  once  to  enter  into  it/'  was  the  preacher's 
testimony  to  the  earnestness  of  his  little  flock.  Anxious 
that  instead  of  contenting  themselves  with  family  wor- 
ship they  should  strive  in  their  different  districts  to 
gather  in  friends  and  neighbours  to  worship  with  them, 
he  prepared  a  sermon  on  united  prayer  for  the  Holy 
Spirit,  his  first  written  discourse,  which  took  an  hour  to 
read  because  he  had  "  no  time  to  cut  it  shorter."  In 
response,  four  district  prayer  meetings  were  immediately 
started,  and  the  teachers  decided  to  meet  together  on 
Saturday  mornings  to  pray  for  themselves  and  their 
pupils.  Another  sermon  on  systematic  giving  gave  birth 
to  a  missionary  society,  the  church  members  remain- 
ing at  the  close  of  the  service  to  take  action  at  once, 
and  pledging  themselves  to  contribute  $18.75  monthly 
towards  the  evangelisation  of  their  country. 

Soon  after,  a  delegation  gathered  in  the  study  at  the 
mission  house.  The  district  meetings  were  being  held 
nightly,  but  the  leaders,  while  reading  the  Bible,  found 
themselves  incompetent  to  give  the  explanations  desired. 
Moreover,  some  of  the  Copts,  amazed  to  hear  Protestants 
praying  for  them,  had  decided  to  open  a  meeting  at  the 
Patriarchate  to  pray  for  themselves,  and  while  accepting 
a  priest  as  their  nominal  leader,  had  requested  the  pres- 
ence and  help  of  the  mission's  head-teacher  and  one  of 
the  recently  appointed  elders,  a  post  of  responsibility  for 
which  they  felt  themselves  inadequately  prepared.  Who 
could  resist  their  plea  for  help?  Certainly  not  the  man 
with  whom  they  pleaded,  who  considered  it  a  mission- 
ary's "  chief  end  "  to  train  native  workers.     For  many 


112      IN  THE  WAKE  OF  PERSECUTION 

weeks  a  class  was  held  four  evenings  weekly,  attended 
by  about  sixteen  school  teachers  and  district  leaders, 
when  after  spending  an  hour  and  a  half  in  Bible  study 
and  earnest  prayer,  they  scattered  to  their  various  meet- 
ings to  share  with  others  the  benefits  they  had  them- 
selves received. 

The  meeting  at  the  Patriarchate  continued  for  over  a 
month,  with  35  or  40  in  attendance,  among  them  some  of 
the  leading  laymen  of  the  Coptic  Church.  The  head 
teacher  and  elder  strove  diligently  to  follow  the  advice 
given  them,  to  avoid  argument  and  lead  discussion  into 
helpful  channels.  But  it  was  soon  evident  to  all  that 
the  conducting  priest,  with  growing  infatuation,  sought 
to  stir  up  strife,  while,  worsted  in  the  arguments  he 
himself  provoked,  his  virulence  grew  with  each  defeat. 
At  length  the  meeting  broke  up  in  confusion,  the  Copts 
declaring  they  would  go  where  they  chose  for  profit, 
and  be  no  longer  beholden  to  the  Patriarch  for  his  hard 
benches  and  his  blustering  priest — whose  only  titles  to 
distinction  were  the  poverty  of  his  logic  and  knowledge 
of  Scripture,  and  the  wealth  of  his  vituperative  vocab- 
ulary. 

This  occurrence  brought  the  Protestants  more  than 
ever  before  the  public.  They  formed  a  common  topic  of 
conversation  in  the  shops  and  by  the  way,  and  their 
doctrines  were  eagerly  discussed  by  many  who  would 
never  have  heard  their  name  but  for  the  Patriarch's 
efiforts  to  crush  them  as  dangerous  foes. 

The  storm  as  it  passed  had  had  a  similar  efifect  within 
the  school.  A  spirit  of  inquiry  pervaded  the  air.  The 
boys  were  aroused  to  more  active  thought,  and  the 
Scripture  lessons  acquired  an  enhanced  value.  Eight 
young  men  and  one  girl  applied  for  admission  to  the 
Church,  and  while  five  were  advised  to  delay,  the  public 


STRAIN  AND  WEARINESS  113 

dedication  of  the  remaining  four  produced  a  deep  im- 
pression. Six  months  before  this  Bamba,  the  girl  com- 
municant, after  a  long  season  of  doubts  and  fears,  had 
found  the  Christian's  joy  in  life,  and  from  that  moment 
her  development  had  been  rapid  and  her  influence  felt. 
When  she  rose  now  from  the  midst  of  the  schoolgirls 
to  take  her  stand  beside  the  young  men  and  answer  the 
questions  addressed  to  her,  the  effect  on  her  companions 
was  marked ;  and  before  a  week  had  passed  three  of  the 
teachers,  who  had  been  weeping  quietly  at  the  time,  had 
found  for  themselves  the  secret  of  her  happiness,  while 
several  of  the  girls  had  decided  to  join  the  quest  and 
were  meeting  with  her  and  the  teachers  daily  for  prayer. 

While  the  Patriarchal  storm  thus  shared  the  sequel 
of  many  a  thunderclap,  the  clouds  dispersing  to  leave 
the  sky  sunnier  than  before,  it  had,  nevertheless,  while  it 
lingered,  given  many  an  anxious  thought  to  a  mind 
already  burdened  with  abundant  care,  and  there  are 
hints  of  strain  and  weariness  in  his  private  correspond- 
ence throughout  the  year. 

When  Mr.  Lansing  sailed,  Mr.  Hogg  had  written,  "  I 
feel  inclined  to  cry  out  with  the  Apostle  Paul,  '  Who  is 
sufficient  for  these  things  ? '  '  Who  is  weak  and  I  am 
noif  weak  ? '  "  A  few  months  later,  writing  to  an  aunt, 
he  contrasts  the  present  with  the  past : 

"  I  have  wrought  three  times  as  hard  these  last  three 
years  as  ever  I  did  as  a  collier.  Then  the  day's  work 
was  done  when  we  had  washed  and  had  our  clothes 
changed  and  picks  mended,  but  here  there  is  no  rest  at 
all — let  me  work  ever  so  hard,  I  always  go  to  bed  with 
something  undone.  Still  the  work  is  the  Lord's.  .  .  . 
When  all  our  brethren  are  back,  the  pressure  of  work 
upon  me  will  not  be  so  constant  and  at  least  my  cares 
will  be  lighter.  It  is  a  pretty  responsible  position  for 
one  so  young  to  fill.     I  have  had  about  46  agents — 


U4>      IN  THE  WAKE  OF  PERSECUTION 

teachers,  colporteurs,  and  others — under  my  charge  for 
the  last  year,  as  well  as  some  very  troublesome  cases  of 
church  discipline  to  manage.  ...  I  was  brought  up  to 
hard  work  from  the  first,  and  now  I  understand  why  it 
was  so.  Had  I  been  pampered  in  my  youth,  I  should 
have  been  useless  in  my  present  sphere." 


Quite  apart  from  the  pressing  sense  of  responsibility, 
the  actual  toil  was  no  slight  load.  On  the  last  night  of 
the  dying  year  he  summed  up  the  work  accomplished : 
208  sermons,  addresses,  and  lectures  delivered,  four  of 
them  in  English;  540  hours  of  teaching,  forty  of  them 
spent  in  drilling  his  teachers  in  Arabic  grammar;  500 
hours  of  work  on  mission  accounts ;  over  1,100  pages 
of  correspondence ;  180  pages  translated  into  Arabic  from 
books  of  varying  size  and  23  chapters  from  Dr.  Edward's 
Commentary  on  the  Bible. 

But  there  was  a  large  element  in  his  life,  as  in  the 
life  of  most,  beyond  his  control  and  outside  of  the  sphere 
of  his  statistical  hobby,  without  some  account  of  which 
the  picture  would  be  incomplete.  To  his  brother  William 
he  describes  the  interruptions  of  a  day  which  he  had 
planned  to  devote  to  correspondence,  translation,  and 
study : 


"  After  family  worship  I  came  along  to  my  library 
.  .  .  but  had  no  sooner  sat  down  than  in  came  first  one, 
then  another,  and  then  a  third,  and  so  on  till  six  o'clock 
at  night,  and  they  might  have  remained  much  longer  had 
I  not  put  on  my  hat  and  told  them  that  I  could  stand 
it  no  longer.  Had  my  visitors  been  wishing  to  learn 
the  way  of  salvation  from  me  I  would  have  borne  with 
them  gladly,  but  nothing  was  further  from  their  minds. 
One  wanted  to  rent  a  house  for  six  months,  but  the 
owner  would  not  let  it  for  less  than  a  year,  and  he 
wished  me  to  become  responsible  for   the  year's   rent, 


INTERRUPTIONS  116 

promising  if  he  left  it  at  the  end  of  six  months  to  find 
another  person  to  take  it.  Another  had  been  disap- 
pointed in  getting  the  sister  of  one  of  our  teachers  to 
wife,  and  wished  me  to  call  them  to  account  and  arrange 
matters.  He  had  come  from  Alexandria  for  the  express 
purpose  of  seeing  me  on  the  subject.  A  third  was  a 
Protestant  stranger  from  Asia  Minor,  who  wished  me 
to  procure  a  ticket  of  leave  from  the  authorities  in  Cairo, 
as  he  wished  to  return  to  Diarbekr,  and  this  could  not 
be  done  without  my  finding  some  one  who  would  be 
responsible  to  the  Government  for  all  his  debts,  etc.,  and 
give  bail  for  him.  And  so  on  to  the  end  of  the  chapter. 
I  am  getting  accustomed  by  degrees  to  such  interrup- 
tions, but  it  goes  hard  against  the  grain,  and  for  the 
life  of  me  I  cannot  appear  to  be  happy  to  see  a  visitor 
when  I  wish  him  to  be  at  the  back  of  beyond." 


Yet  the  reception  of  visitors  was  often  a  pleasure  and 
privilege,  with  results  more  far-reaching  than  the  work 
which  it  interrupted,  and  "  thereby  some  have  entertained 
angels  unawares." 

This  fact  was  brought  forcibly  to  the  mind  of  the  mis- 
sionary in  the  spring  of  1864  by  a  curious  web  of  cir- 
cumstances, the  weaving  of  which  he  watched  with  the 
keenest  interest — a  web  woven  round  the  life  and  for- 
tunes of  Bamba,  the  pupil-teacher  whose  stand  for  Christ 
at  the  previous  Communion  service  had  so  moved  her 
fellows. 

She  was  only  fifteen  years  of  age,  and  Mr.  Hogg  de- 
scribes her  as  "  beautiful  and  unsophisticated,  extremely 
winning  in  all  her  ways,  and  graceful,  even  queenly,  in 
her  movements."  Her  missionary  friends  felt  her  to 
have  "  such  a  character  as  heroines  are  made  of,"  and 
looked  forward  anxiously  to  the  future,  fearing  lest  an 
unsuitable  marriage  might  occur  to  mar  her  fine  develop- 
ment.    Her  mother  was  an  Abyssinian  slave,  who  had 


116      IN  THE  WAKE  OF  PERSECUTION 

brought  up  her  child  in  the  simple  Eastern  style  to 
which  she  was  herself  accustomed.  Her  father  was  a 
wealthy  German  merchant,  justly  loved  and  respected 
by  all  who  knew  him,  on  whose  heart  hung  heavily  the 
responsibility  for  his  innocent  daughter's  destiny,  the 
lingering  shadow  from  a  far-off  past.  Her  inna;te 
superiority  rendered  marriage  with  any  of  her 
mother's  kin  an  injustice,  while  the  circumstances  of 
her  birth  seemed  to  bar  the  entrance  into  such  a 
rank  in  life  as  she  was  fitted  to  adorn.  The  prob- 
lem was  suddenly  solved  in  the  incredible  fashion  of 
fairy  tales. 

Two  months  had  passed  since  Bamba  was  received 
into  the  Church,  when  Mr.  Hogg,  seated  one  Sabbath 
in  his  study  at  the  close  of  his  afternoon's  work,  re- 
ceived a  note  whose  contents  so  startled  him  that  he 
read  and  reread  it  as  though  unable  to  trust  his  eye- 
sight. It  bore  the  signature  of  the  Maharajah  Dhuleep 
Singh,  whose  father,  the  conquered  King  of  the  Punjab, 
had  been  a  man  of  wide  fame  and  fabulous  wealth.  The 
exiled  Prince,  besides  possessing  jewels  of  untold  value 
and  large  estates  in  Britain,  received  from  the  British 
Government  annually  an  income  of  nearly  $2,000,000, 
and  was  entitled  in  Britain  to  a  rank  next  to  that  of 
the  royal  family.  He  was  returning  to  India,  with  a 
special  permit  from  Parliament,  to  commit  his  mother's 
remains,  in  accordance  with  her  dying  request,  to  the 
care  of  her  relatives  for  the  performance  of  the  funeral 
rites  of  her  religion  and  country.  While  in  Cairo  the 
young  man  had  visited  the  mission  schools  frequently 
and  mingled  with  the  missionaries  in  the  friendliest 
manner,  winning  their  confidence  by  his  unaffected  ear- 
nestness and  kindly  bearing. 

The  note  was  simple  and  direct.    It  ran  as  follows : 


THE  STORY  OF  BAMBA  117 

My  Dear  Mr.  Hogg, 

I  was  desirous  of  having  a  talk  with  you  this  morning 
in  private,  but  did  not  have  the  opportunity  of  meeting 
with  you  alone. 

What  I  wished  to  have  spoken  to  you  about  was 
whether  there  was  in  either  of  your  schools  a  truly 
Christian  girl  who  has  joined  the  Church,  and  whom 
you  and  Miss  Dales  could  recommend  me  for  a  wife. 
Being  an  Easterner  myself,  it  is  very  desirable  that  I 
should  find  a  wife  from  the  same  quarter  of  the  globe. 

Will  you  keep  this  matter  quite  secret  and  will  you 
let  me  have  an  answer  before  I  leave  for  Suez  this 
evening,  so  that  should  there  be  no  one  in  your  schools 
here  I  may  look  out  for  one  in  India? 

Rank  and  position  in  life  are  of  no  consequence  to 
me.     What  I  want  is  a  truly  Christian  girl  who  loves 
the  Lord  Jesus  in  sincerity  and  truth. 
I  am, 

Yours  faithfully, 

Dhuleep  Singh. 

After  rapid  consultation  with  Mr.  Ewing,  Mr.  Hogg 
hurried  to  the  hotel  of  the  Prince  to  answer  his  question 
in  person.  The  Prince  remembered  Bamba  well  and  lis- 
tened with  interest  to  every  detail  concerning  her.  The 
picture  presented  to  him  proved  attractive.  He  brushed 
aside  external  obstacles,  as  of  trivial  importance  should 
the  girl  herself  be  worthy  of  love  and  honour.  His 
unavoidable  absence,  he  said,  would  give  ample  time  for 
further  thought  and  prayer,  and  on  his  return,  all  being 
favourable,  he  would  advise  with  the  missionaries  as  to 
what  course  to  pursue  in  his  suit. 

A  night's  delay  in  starting,  however,  with  the  wakeful 
hours  of  meditation  it  afforded,  made  two  months'  un- 
certainty seem  insupportable,  and  Monday  forenoon 
found  him  closeted  with  his  mission  friends  discussing 
the  situation  further  and  prepared  to  make  his  proposal 


118      IN  THE  WAKE  OF  PERSECUTION 

at  once.  Bamba,  all  unconscious,  came  to  the  study  to 
give  to  the  distinguished  guest  a  handkerchief  she  had 
embroidered  for  him  as  a  memento  of  the  school  in  which 
he  had  taken  so  kindly  an  interest,  and  presenting  her 
gift,  she  kissed  his  hand  and  withdrew,  little  dreaminxj 
with  what  feelings  her  graceful  eastern  salutation  was 
received.  The  Maharajah  begged  the  missionaries  to 
pray  with  him,  and  when  they  rose  from  their  knees 
Miss  Dales  sallied  forth  as  his  ambassador,  bearing  the 
fateful  message.  The  girl  received  the  Prince's  offer 
with  perfect  composure,  but  her  impulse  was  to  reject  it 
without  consideration.  Her  thoughts  of  God's  service 
had  not  yet  crossed  the  boundary  of  the  school  she  so 
dearly  loved,  and  to  God's  service  she  would  devote  her 
life.  When  it  was  suggested,  however,  that  the  offer 
might  be  God's  call  to  a  wider  service,  she  was  willing 
that  its  claims  should  be  weighed,  and  requested  that  the 
matter  be  submitted  to  her  father  for  decision.  Her 
attitude  pleased  the  Prince,  but  necessitated  his  leaving 
Cairo  without  the  answer  that  would  seal  his  fate. 

Scarcely  had  he  gone,  when  Mr.  Hogg  discovered  that 
Bamba's  father  was  in  town  and  leaving  by  a  train  that 
was  timed  to  start  immediately.  Trusting  to  some  provi- 
dential delay,  he  hurried  to  the  station  in  time  to  make 
to  the  astonished  father,  through  the  carriage  window, 
an  offer  on  the  Maharajah's  behalf  for  his  daughter's 
hand;  but  the  door  was  already  locked,  and  little  more 
than  the  bare  fact  had  been  communicated  when  they 
discovered  the  train  already  in  motion,  carrying  off  the 
bewildered  man. 

The  faded  yellow  documents  in  which  the  romance 
has  been  preserved  are  so  instinct  with  human  interest 
that  they  tempt  one  to  linger  over  the  tale.  A  long 
letter  of  explanation,  penned  after  returning  from  the 


BAMBA, 
The  bride  of  the  Maharajah  Dhuleep  Singh 


THE  STORY  OF  BAMBA  119 

station  and  brought  to  an  abrupt  conclusion  at  ii  p.m. 
by  the  entrance  of  the  father  himself,  who  had  alighted 
at  the  first  stopping-place  on  his  route  and  travelled 
back  by  a  goods  train  to  discuss  the  event  more  fully. 
A  wise,  full,  and  understanding  letter,  written  in  Arabic, 
for  Bamba  to  ponder  in  the  privacy  of  her  own  room, 
to  help  the  girl,  to  whom  her  father  had  remitted  the 
delicate  task  of  decision,  to  weigh  carefully  all  the  issues 
at  stake  and  reach  a  personal  and  unbiased  conviction 
as  to  God's  will.  The  translation  from  Arabic  of  a  little 
letter  full  of  a  sweet  simplicity,  in  which  the  daughter 
tells  her  father  that,  after  days  of  darkness,  light  has 
dawned,  revealing  the  new  sphere  as  of  God's  planning. 
The  welcome  message  to  the  Prince  that  crowned  his 
hope  with  certainty,  and  a  copy  of  his  answering  message 
to  his  promised  bride,  with  plans  for  her  preparation 
for  the  exalted  rank  awaiting  her.  Lastly  the  mission- 
ary's letters  to  his  home-circle,  through  which  are  scat- 
tered glimpses  of  the  progress  of  the  courtship,  the 
growing  happiness  of  the  two  concerned  and  their  efforts 
to  learn  each  other's  language,  items  regarding  dress  and 
jewels  and  wedding  arrangements,  news  of  the  princely 
thank-offering  of  $5,000,  given  in  Bamba's  name  for  the 
work  to  which  both  owed  so  much,  and  details  of  the 
honeymoon  and  the  happy  days  spent  by  the  sweet  and 
unspoiled  bride  with  her  old  companions  in  the  school 
she  loved. 

But  what  concerns  us  more  than  the  tale  the  docu- 
ments tell  is  the  unconscious  revelation  they  contain  of 
the  character  of  their  writer  and  collector,  of  the  strong 
human  sympathies  that  opened  to  him  the  hearts  of  the 
three  chief  actors  in  the  drama,  and  of  his  power  of 
looking  at  life  through  the  eyes  of  another  while  keeping 
in  view  all  sides  of  the  matter  at  issue,  a  power  which 


120      IN  THE  WAKE  OF  PERSECUTION 

made  him  a  wise  and  helpful  counsellor.  Moreover, 
there  is  interesting  evidence  throughout  of  two  currents 
of  happiness  whose  sources  present  a  quaint  contrast; 
the  one  springing  from  the  simple  world-wide  love  of 
romance  and  a  very  human  but  not  unworldly  gratifica- 
tion, amused  but  genuine,  at  the  leading  part  allotted 
him  in  the  marriage  negotiations  and  wedding  ceremony 
of  a  man  so  high  in  rank  as  to  be  on  terms  of  intimacy 
with  Queen  Victoria  herself ;  the  other  deep  and  spiritual, 
springing  from  a  vivid  and  glad  recognition  of  that 
"  good  and  acceptable  and  perfect  will  of  God  "  which 
he  seemed  to  see  controlling  the  minutest  details  of 
experience  to  the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom. 

Of  that  wise  and  loving  control  the  immediate  financial 
relief  caused  by  the  Prince's  generosity  gave  grateful 
evidence.  The  thank-offering  had  come  when  the  mission 
treasury  was  burdened  with  debt  and  every  remittance 
from  America  lost  over  sixty-four  per  cent  in  transit 
owing  to  the  exorbitant  rate  of  exchange  the  Civil  War 
had  brought  in  its  train.  Added  to  the  $5,000  received 
was  the  promise  of  an  annual  gift  of  half  that  sum  to 
make  possible  an  increase  in  the  mission  staflF,  and  Mr. 
Hogg  wrote  an  earnest  plea  to  the  Church  in  America 
to  rise  to  the  new  opportunity,  begging  indeed  not  for 
two  but  for  six  new  missionaries. 

To  this  he  received  a  discouraging  reply,  and  the  need 
of  the  country  pressed  upon  him  heavily.  His  oversight 
of  scattered  workers  had  kept  him  in  touch  with  all 
parts  of  the  field,  serving  to  deepen  the  impressions  that 
had  been  produced  upon  him  by  his  work  on  the  Nile. 
The  interior  thus  uttered  insistently  in  his  heart  the 
Macedonian  cry.  He  had  been  left  alone  in  Cairo  only 
six  months.  Mr.  Ewing  returned  in  November  and 
Mr.  Lansing  the  following  April,  and  he  now  urged  on 


A  PLEA  FOR  REDISTRIBUTION         121 

his  colleagues  that  instead  of  subdividing  the  work  they 
should  redistribute  their  forces  and  without  awaiting 
further  reinforcements  enter  in  to  possess  the  land.  He 
even  undertook  to  prove  that  by  rearrangement  three 
might  be  made  to  equal  five,  that  the  two  left  in  Cairo 
would  do  almost  as  much  as  the  three  were  now  accom- 
plishing, while  one  at  Assiut  or  any  new  centre  in  the 
far  interior  would  be  so  free  from  secular  business  as 
to  do  as  much  direct  evangelistic  work  as  two  could 
compass  in  Cairo. 

This  arithmetical  argument  failed  to  convince  his  col- 
leagues, and  he  was  forced  to  yield  to  their  judgment, 
though  "  against  a  strong  conviction  of  duty."  Their 
judgment  wavered,  however,  when  Mr.  Hogg  returned 
soon  after  from  a  visit  to  the  Faiyum  district,  with  a 
report  of  conditions  so  hopeful  yet  critical  that  the  imme- 
diate presence  of  a  settled  missionary  seemed  indispensa- 
ble. It  was  agreed  that  he  should  spend  four  or  five 
months  in  the  new  sphere,  and  the  preparations  for  de- 
parture were  begun  with  a  secret  sense  of  finality,  as 
he  cherished  the  hope  that  his  temporary  absence  would 
convince  his  colleagues  that  his  arithmetic  had  been 
correct.  But  he  was  forced  to  abandon  the  project. 
News  of  the  interest  that  was  stirring  the  Faiyum  people 
reached  the  Patriarch,  who  used  such  strong  measures 
to  crush  the  movement  that  the  inquirers  in  alarm  feigned 
full  submission,  and  so  changed  their  bearing  that  the 
time  became  unpropitious  for  a  missionary's  advent. 

Thus  thwarted  in  his  plans  for  extending  the  work  by 
a  redistribution  of  forces,  Mr.  Hogg  now  threw  himself 
with  ardour  into  a  scheme  already  mooted,  but  hitherto 
impracticable,  for  increasing  the  number  of  competent 
workers.  He  had  urged  upon  Presbytery,  in  1863,  the 
necessity  of  beginning  at  once  to  raise  up  a  well-trained 


122      IN  THE  WAKE  OF  PERSECUTION 

native  ministry  to  man  the  field.  This  project  was  ap- 
proved, but  in  the  absence  of  Mr.  Lansing  and  Mr. 
Ewing,  v^rho  were  appointed  to  share  with  him  in  the 
enterprise,  nothing  formal  or  permanent  had  yet  been 
attempted.  Now,  however,  all  was  favourable,  and  in 
September,  1864,  a  theological  class  was  inaugurated 
with  ten  students  on  its  roll. 

He  soon  added  an  hour  to  the  two  hours  of  teaching 
allotted  him,  in  addition  to  which  he  translated  each  day 
into  Arabic  the  required  portion  of  the  text-book, 
Hodge's  Outlines  of  Theology.  Of  this  he  wrote:  "It 
is  extremely  difficult  to  translate,  but  if  I  succeed  in 
putting  such  a  book  into  intelligible  Arabic  I  shall  then 
be  prepared  for  almost  any  kind  of  work  on  theological 
subjects."  With  simpler  books  he  seems  already  to  have 
attained  ease  in  translation,  for  he  refers  to  the  trans- 
lating of  a  tract  in  an  afternoon  and  morning,  which, 
swollen  in  the  process  by  the  addition  of  ten  pages  of 
original  matter,  took  an  hour  to  read  aloud.  Revising 
it  with  the  help  of  an  Arabic  teacher,  he  had  it  in  con- 
dition for  printing  two  days  later,  and  remarks  that  he 
could  not  have  done  it  in  English  so  soon. 

The  two  colleagues  started  a  magazine,  which  they 
intended  to  be  a  monthly  issue,  and  seem  to  have  con- 
tinued the  eflPort  undaunted,  though  the  first  number, 
prepared  by  Mr.  Hogg  with  feverish  concentration  in 
three  days,  was  delayed  three  and  a  half  months  in  the 
press. 

Another  form  of  Arabic  composition  he  undertook 
as  mere  pastime,  as  appears  from  the  following: 

"  On  Sabbath  evening  I  felt  a  little  tired,  so  I  thought 
I  would  try  and  write  an  Arabic  hymn.  I  set  to  work  and 
composed  one  of  nine  verses  ...  to  the  measure  of 
'  What's  the  News/  and  Monday  I  had  the  teachers  teach 


THE  DOOR  OPENED  123 

it  to  the  children  in  both  the  schools,  and  to-day  it  has 
become  quite  popular.  What  gave  me  courage  to  try 
my  hand  at  Arabic  poetry  was  that  on  the  Sabbath  even- 
ing previous,  Mr.  Lansing  proposed  that  we  should  try 
and  translate  a  favourite  hymn  of  his,  '  Jesus  Paid  It 
All,'  and  I  furnished  him  with  the  words  nearly  as  fast  as 
he  could  write  them."  He  explains  that  the  only  book 
of  Arabic  hymns  extant  was  in  language  above  the  chil- 
dren's comprehension,  and  remarks :  "  It  will  be  nice  if 
we  can  put  the  Gospel  into  simple  songs  and  have  them 
sung  in  the  streets  of  Cairo,  perhaps  even  by  the  donkey- 
boys." 

But  the  meeting  of  Presbytery  *  on  January  3,  1865, 
temporarily  arrested  all  other  labours,  and  the  decisions 
then  reached  opened  for  him  the  door  of  his  desire.  The 
Presbytery  granted  his  appeal  to  be  allowed  to  attempt 
the  opening  of  a  station  at  Assiut,  where  the  efforts  of 
the  mission  to  obtain  a  permanent  foothold  by  a  native 
agency  had  proved  ineffective.  He  was  released  from 
the  general  treasurership,  and  after  a  final  onslaught 
at  accounts,  during  which  he  worked  from  fifteen  to 
seventeen  hours  a  day  for  five  days,  he  wrote  joyfully, 
though  with  "  a  brain  full  of  nothing  but  figures,"  to 
transfer  his  responsibilities  to  Mr.  Watson,  his  suc- 
cessor. By  the  beginning  of  February,  all  his  affairs 
were  wound  up,  his  household  goods  committed  to  a 
grain-boat,  and  accompanied  by  his  wife  and  children, 
Miss  McKown,  and  some  Egyptian  workers,  he  set  out 
gladly  to  greet  the  new  opportunities  awaiting  him  in 
the  beckoning  south. 

*  Until  the  formation  of  the  Missionary  Association  in  1871 
the  Egyptian  Presbytery  was  formed  of  missionaries  only,  and 
its  decisions  controlled  their  location  and  work. 


IX 

PIONEER  DAYS  IN  ASSIUT 

I  am  sure  that  you  or  I  could  be  strengthened  to  meet 
some  great  experience  of  pain  if  we  really  believed  that 
by  our  suffering  we  were  to  be  made  luminous  with  help 
to  other  men.  They  are  to  get  from  us  painlessly  what 
we  have  got  most  painfully  from  God.  There  is  the  power 
of  the  bravest  martyrdom  and  the  hardest  work  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen. 

— Phillips  Brooks, 

NEARLY  three  years  had  passed  since  Mr.  Hogg's 
last  journey  on  the  river.  On  the  former  occa- 
sion each  village  as  it  slowly  dwindled  in  the  dis- 
tance had  deepened  his  regret  at  the  necessary  haste  of 
his  visit.  "  Egypt  is  the  last  place  to  do  good  in  if 
you're  in  a  hurry,"  he  had  written ;  "  some  one  ought 
to  settle."  But  now  the  villages  vanished  all  too  slowly 
from  view,  for  his  desire  lay  before  him.  He  was  going 
to  settle,  and  to  settle  in  the  place  of  all  others  that 
seemed  to  him  the  most  hopeful  and  important. 

The  majority  of  the  Coptic  people  are  to  be  found 
in  Upper  Egypt.  In  the  province  and  town  of  Assiut 
they  form  a  fourth  of  the  population,  and  if  the  newly 
born  Evangelical  Church  was  indeed  to  exercise  a  reform- 
ing influence  on  the  parent  Church  and  act  as  a  vanguard 
in  the  fight  of  faith,  no  better  centre  could  have  been 
selected  to  become  its  stronghold  than  the  capital  of  the 
Upper  Country. 

But  the  villages  showed  no  disposition  to  gratify  any 
desire    for   their   speedy   disappearance,   and   seventeen 

124 


ARRIVAL  125 

days  were  consumed  by  a  journey  that  has  long  since 
dwindled  to  the  compass  of  eight  hours.  The  "  Ibis  "  had 
been  sold  to  the  Maharajah  and  to  hire  a  suitable  sub- 
stitute would  have  cost  the  mission  $200,  while  a  boat 
of  rougher  fashion  returning  empty  to  Assiut  was  ob- 
tainable at  small  expense.  A  choice  was  quickly  made 
and  its  consequences  endured  at  leisure.  Rats  drove  the 
little  party  out  of  the  first  boat  chosen.  In  the  second 
the  divans  that  served  as  beds  measured  five  feet  in 
length,  the  cabin  five  and  a  half  feet  in  height,  and 
Mr.  Hogg,  measuring  six  feet,  found  his  extra  inches  no 
slight  encumbrance.  Insect  life  abounded,  and  from  the 
slow  rate  of  progress  provisions  ran  short.  Chickens, 
eggs,  and  vegetables  were  seldom  procurable,  butcher 
meat  and  milk  never,  and  towards  the  close  of  the  trip 
the  menu  twice  daily  consisted  of  sun-dried  bread  boiled 
in  sugar  and  water.  The  baby  suffered  most,  having 
been  but  a  few  weaks  weaned,  and  he  was  so  mal- 
treated at  night  by  eager  bedfellows  that  his  appear- 
ance suggested  the  first  stages  of  smallpox. 

On  February  21  they  reached  their  destination.  A 
friend  awaited  them  on  the  bank  with  donkeys,  horse, 
and  camels  to  convey  the  party  and  their  belongings  to 
his  house.  Here  they  had  experience  of  the  patriarchal 
system  at  its  best,  and  came  into  closer  touch  with  the 
inner  life  of  Egypt  than  had  yet  been  possible  to  them. 
One  needs  to  receive  as  well  as  to  give  before  intimacy 
is  complete,  and  the  lack  was  supplied  by  ten  days  of 
Egyptian  hospitality.  Mr.  Wasif  Khayatt,  having  been 
much  in  Cairo,  was  already  a  friend,  and  unknown  to 
his  own  community  had  become  a  member  of  the  infant 
Protestant  Church.  He  was  the  head  of  one  of  the 
oldest  and  wealthiest  families  of  the  town  and  moved 
about  among  his  dependants  with  an  unvarying  dignity, 


126  PIONEER  DAYS  IN  ASSIUT 

humility,  and  kindliness  that  won  him  the  respect  and 
love  of  all.  The  friendship  already  formed  took  firmer 
root  and  stood  the  test  of  many  trials.  Meanwhile  the 
Westerners  caused  no  little  surprise  to  the  rest  of  the 
household  by  their  peculiar  ways.  The  zeal  of  the  two 
ladies  in  sweeping  and  dusting,  and  their  inclination  to 
be  always  busy,  their  peculiarities  of  dress  and  custom, 
and  their  mysterious  processes  of  starching  and  ironing 
were  the  first  eddies  of  the  tide  of  innovations  that  is 
sweeping  away  the  old  landmarks  and  makes  the  life  of 
1865  ancient  history  to  the  Assiutian  of  to-day. 

A  house  had  been  selected  for  them  before  their  arrival. 
Despite  all  urging,  however,  the  needed  repairs  made 
but  halting  progress,  and  growing  weary  of  delay,  the 
party  decided  not  to  await  their  completion.  March  2 
found  them  in  their  new  home ;  on  March  4  an  audience 
was  gathered  for  the  Sabbath  service,  and  next  morning 
two  schools  were  founded. 

Meanwhile,  death  had  lurked  as  near  to  them  as  on 
the  Bay  of  Biscay,  though  knowledge  of  their  danger 
came  only  with  the  story  of  their  deliverance. 

A  Mohammedan  fanatic  at  Keneh,  Ahmed  by  name, 
had  proclaimed  himself  the  promised  Mahdi  sent  by 
God  to  make  Islam  supreme.  With  2,000  armed  fol- 
lowers he  had  vanquished  the  800  soldiers  sent  by  the 
Mudirs  of  Assiut  and  Girgeh  to  restore  quiet  in  the 
south.  FlusTied  by  success,  they  set  their  faces  towards 
Assiut,  where  400  prisoners  were  to  escape  from  their 
jail  and  prepare  for  their  arrival,  cutting  the  telegraph 
wires,  killing  the  government  employees,  and  joining 
with  the  insurgents  in  a  general  massacre  of  all  Chris- 
tians. They  would  then  fortify  Assiut  and  defy  the 
government.  Saturday  night  was  fixed  for  the  massacre, 
and  the  prisoners  having  been  previously  provided  by 


AN  ABORTIVE  REBELLION  127 

their  friends  with  files  and  other  implements,  had  almost 
achieved  their  escape,  when  they  grew  careless  in  their 
success  and  alarm  spread.  The  Mudir  being  absent  and 
only  four  soldiers  in  the  town,  the  town  council  were  help- 
less and  paralysed  with  fear,  while  the  mission  party, 
all  unconscious,  retired  peacefully  to  rest  behind  lockless 
doors.  Suddenly  news  came  of  the  unexpected  arrival 
of  lOO  soldiers  from  Minieh.  They  were  immediately 
marched  to  the  jail,  where  they  found  the  prisoners 
free  of  chains,  two  doors  already  forced,  and  only  a 
step  remaining  to  the  accomplishment  of  their  bloody 
purpose.  The  riot  was  quickly  quelled  and  the  bodies 
of  the  ringleaders  exposed  on  the  wall  of  the  town  as 
a  warning  to  the  disaffected.  Ahmed  and  his  2,000  had 
met  a  similar  fate.  A  strong  force  from  the  Khedive 
arrived  just  as  they  were  preparing  for  their  northward 
march.  Bombs  and  grape-shot  fired  from  the  govern- 
ment steamers  brought  panic  into  their  midst,  and  be- 
fore they  could  rally  an  armed  force  was  upon  them. 
Ahmed  was  amongst  the  slain,  and  many  were  taken 
captive,  while  the  remainder  fled  to  the  mountains. 

It  thus  happened  that  the  foundations  of  the  work  in 
Assiut  were  laid  amidst  songs  of  deliverance,  the  wonder 
of  the  workers  growing  as  details  reached  them  of  the 
slender  links  of  circumstance  on  which  life  and  death 
had  hung.  Indeed  good  cheer  is  the  dominant  note  in  all 
the  early  letters  from  Assiut,  and,  were  the  house  not 
still  standing  to  dispel  the  illusion,  the  reader  would  be 
tempted  to  envy  its  dwellers  settled  in  a  residence  that 
was  soon  to  seem  to  its  inmates  "  the  nicest  mission 
house  in  Egypt." 

It  was  like  having  a  daily  picnic,  Mr.  Hogg  declared, 
to  eat  in  their  dining-room  gazing  out  through  a  row 
of   windows    at    the    enierald    plain.     The    intervening 


128  PIONEER  DAYS  IN  ASSIUT 

houses  and  dusty  road  were  out  of  sight,  while  beyond 
stretched  a  sea  of  clover  and  wheat,  broken  by  islands 
of  clustering  palms,  with  distant  sails  like  white  wings 
of  waterfowl  on  the  hidden  river,  and  the  whole  view 
framed  by  the  Libyan  and  Arabian  hills  glorified  nightly 
by  the  magic  of  Egyptian  sunset.  True,  life  had  its 
drawbacks.  The  landlord  was  stingy  and  liked  to  sub- 
stitute promises  for  deeds.  Mr.  Hogg  had  to  whitewash 
the  five  rooms  himself,  as  all  work  that  he  relegated 
remained  undone.  The  kitchen  was  shared  by  the  land- 
lord's family  and  not  to  be  entered  by  any  one  who 
respected  his  appetite.  Scorpions,  lizards,  wasps,  and 
beetles  roamed  at  will  or  lurked  in  hidden  corners,  and 
the  damp  floors  laid  the  children  low  with  croup  and 
ophthalmia.  A  theologue  who  had  come  to  help  in  the 
work  became  ill  and  irritable,  monopolised  the  servant, 
and  took  upon  him  to  dismiss  their  doorkeeper. 

But  the  interest  of  the  work  was  great.  The  nuclei 
were  gathered  of  what  were  to  become  Assiut  College 
and  the  Pressley  Memorial  Institute.  Two  rooms  open- 
ing off  the  court  were  set  apart  for  the  twin  institutions, 
rooms  that  at  first  had  seemed  fit  for  nothing  but  stables, 
but  which,  with  old  mats  spread  on  their  earthen  floors, 
and  maps  and  pictures  adorning  their  walls,  were  soon 
declared  to  lack  nothing  but  benches,  and  a  good  school- 
ful  of  pupils  to  make  them  look  "  very  nice."  Carpenters 
being  an  elusive  quantity,  the  benches  took  weeks  to 
secure,  but  four  boys  and  two  girls  were  present  on  the 
opening  day,  and  within  three  weeks  the  enrolment  in 
both  schools  had  tripled. 

It  was  the  missionary's  custom  every  Sabbath  to  attend 
the  portion  of  the  Coptic  service  in  which  he  could 
conscientiously  join,  and  to  withdraw  just  before  the 
celebration   of   the   mass,   expounding  later  at  services 


EXCOMMUNICATION  120 

held  in  the  school-room  the  passages  of  Scripture  that 
had  been  read  in  church,  and  basing  his  sermons  on  their 
leading  lessons.  When  in  three  weeks'  time  his  audience 
at  these  services  had  grown  from  twelve  to  fifty,  the 
priests  and  Bishop  took  alarm,  and  excited  by  the  visit 
of  the  Metropolitan  Bishop  from  Cairo,  decided  to  imi- 
tate the  measures  that  had  been  previously  adopted  by 
the  Patriarch. 

In  Cairo  the  missionaries  had  learned  of  the  patri- 
archal edict  only  at  second-hand.  At  Assiut  a  dramatic 
touch  was  added  by  the  presence  amongst  the  Coptic 
audience  during  the  reading  of  the  Bishop's  bull  of 
the  man  at  whose  head  its  worst  anathemas  were  lev- 
elled. When  he  discovered  the  nature  of  the  document 
that  the  Bishop  had  handed  to  a  subordinate  to  read  on 
his  behalf,  Mr.  Hogg,  instead  of  withdrawing  as  usual 
before  the  mass,  walked  forward  and  took  his  stand  close 
to  the  reader  that  not  a  word  of  the  proclamation  might 
escape  his  ear. 

A  boy  *  in  the  audience,  who  became  a  life-long  friend, 
has  preserved  a  picture  of  the  scene  and  of  the  feelings 
it  awakened.  The  missionary  stood  alone,  bareheaded, 
the  eyes  of  the  multitude  fixed  upon  him,  listening  in 
silence  to  the  curses  hurled  from  the  reader's  desk  at 
himself,  his  creed,  his  mission,  his  companions,  and  all 
who  dared  to  have  dealings  with  them  or  salute  them 
by  the  way.  The  boy  who  had  allied  himself  with  the 
school  from  the  day  of  its  opening,  cowered  under  the 
opprobrious  epithets  poured  upon  his  new  teacher,  hav- 
ing already  formed  the  highest  estimate  of  the  "  false 
prophets  "  and  "  ravening  wolves."  W^hen  hatred,  de- 
scending to  a  viler  level,  embodied  itself  in  the  grossest 
insinuations  as  to  the  personal  character  and  objects  of 

*  Rev.  Shenoodeh  Hanna. 


130  PIONEER  DAYS  IN  ASSIUT 

the  strangers,  and  he  heard  a  "  God  forgive  you  "  ut- 
tered twice  in  reply,  the  boy  cringed  and  shivered  as 
though  himself  sharing  in  the  guilt  of  the  lying  slanders 
his  soul  loathed,  and  glancing  furtively  at  the  audience, 
read  in  their  faces  a  shame  akin  to  his  own. 

Mr.  Hogg  silently  withdrew  when  the  anathemas 
ended,  and  a  stir  of  reaction  followed  his  exit.  Mr. 
Wasif  and  Mr.  Wissa,  men  whom  the  Coptic  authorities 
feared  to  offend,  constrained  the  Bishop  to  extend  an 
invitation  to  all  who  willed  to  meet  with  him  after  the 
service  for  further  consideration  of  the  matters  men- 
tioned in  the  edict,  and  soon  a  dozen  of  the  most  impor- 
tant men  of  tlie  church  gathered  in  the  Bishop's  chamber, 
while  fifty  or  sixty  crowded  around  the  doors  to  see 
and  hear  what  might  occur. 

Picture  the  feelings  of  the  Bishop  when  into  the  midst 
of  this  assembly  so  reluctantly  called  there  walked  the 
very  man  whom  he  had  publicly  banned,  and  all  present 
instinctively  rising  in  his  honour,  he  found  him- 
self in  courtesy  forced  to  join  in  their  polite 
greetings,  in  spite  of  the  anathemas  he  had  himself 
declared  as  the  punishment  to  follow  upon  such  an 
act!  Nor  was  this  all,  for  Mr.  Wissa  presently 
announced  that  he  had  desired  Mr.  Hogg's  presence 
that  they  might  hear  from  his  own  lips  in  what  points 
his  teaching  differed  from  that  of  the  Coptic  Church,  and 
thus  give  the  cleverest  of  the  clergy  a  chance  of  refuting 
his  false  doctrines  by  Bible  proofs  in  the  presence  of 
them  all.  The  man  who  was  "  never  so  happy  as  when 
preaching  "  rejoiced  in  his  opportunity,  and  strengthened 
every  statement  by  liberal  quotations  from  the  Book  they 
held  to  be  divine.  But  when  his  opponents'  chance  fol- 
lowed, consternation  was  written  on  their  faces,  and 
there  was  a  general  call  for  "  Tanassa,  Tanassa,"  the 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  STORM         131 

only  man  in  Assiut  known  to  be  learned  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. The  Scriptures  already  quoted,  however,  had  over- 
powered Tanassa,  and,  forced  unwillingly  to  his  feet, 
he  could  do  nothing  but  beg  the  missionary  not  to  be 
angry,  declaring  that  the  edict  had  not  been  directed 
against  him,  and  explaining  that  its  sole  purpose  had 
been  to  rally  the  people  to  zeal  in  the  matter  of  opening 
a  Coptic  school ! 

The  conversation  was  then  dexterously  shifted,  and 
discussion  on  the  new  topic  becoming  general,  it  was 
soon  agreed  to  send  to  the  Patriarch  for  a  suitable 
teacher.  In  view,  however,  of  the  delay  involved,  the 
poor  Bishop  found  himself  forced  by  the  pressure 
brought  to  bear  on  him  to  annul  his  solemn  threats  of 
excommunication  by  allowing  pupils  to  continue  their 
attendance  at  the  mission  school  till  a  Coptic  teacher 
could  be  secured.  Thus  before  the  priestly  thunder  had 
ceased  to  reverberate,  the  clouds  passed  and  the  sun 
shone  out  as  before.  Yet  the  threatened  thunder-storm 
had  a  strong  effect  upon  the  timorous  and  checked  the 
rapid  progress  of  the  work. 

Each  month,  however,  told  its  tale  of  quiet  labour. 
While  the  heat  grew  apace,  strength  and  appetite  flagged, 
and  the  emerald  plain  became  a  barren  stretch  of  sun- 
baked earth.  Towards  the  end  of  May  we  find  the 
housekeeper,  late  of  an  evening,  the  thermometer  still 
at  90°,  writing  to  Alexandria  for  what  she  thinks  may 
add  a  relish  to  the  daily  fare,  and  as  the  writer  penned 
her  message  sharp  crackling  sounds  came  from  all  direc- 
tions as  though  every  article  in  the  room  were  possessed. 
At  last  a  loud  report  made  her  start  from  her  chair, 
to  find  a  wide  crack  sheer  across  the  dining-room  table, 
and  a  washstand  that  had  been  "  cracking  merrily  "  ail 
evening,  looking  almost  ready  to  fall  to  pieces. 


132  PIONEER  DAYS  IN  ASSIUT 

Shortly  after,  the  temperature  in  the  coolest  room, 
closed  and  darkened,  is  recorded  during  eleven  successive 
days:  98°,  104°,  104°,  104°,  I05^  100°,  104°,  95°,  93°, 
96°,  98° ;  at  an  open  window  after  sunset  104°,  and 
before  sunrise  next  morning,  still  far  up  in  the  nineties. 

"  I  never  dreamed  to  find  such  heat  in  Egypt,"  Mr. 
Hogg  wrote  on  June  26.  "  The  pillow  in  the  bed  feels 
like  the  limb  of  a  person  in  a  high  fever.  Every  room 
in  the  house  is  hotter  than  another,  and  there  is  no 
escape  from  it  but  in  work  and  perspiration."  [No 
wonder  he  felt  feeble  and  "  used  up."  But  the  escape 
referred  to  was  very  real.]  "  Though  I  could  hardly 
creep  downstairs  yesterday  morning,"  he  confesses,  "  the 
sermon  and  an  audience  of  50  to  55  old  and  young 
acted  as  usual  like  a  charm;  ditto  ditto  at  the  evening 
service  with  10  to  12  adults  and  6  to  8  boys.  I  felt 
weak  enough  again  this  morning,  but  am  now  in  a 
glowing  perspiration  and  all  right. 

"  I  am  quite  aware  of  the  importance  of  your  broth- 
erly counsels,  and  while  doing  what  I  can  and  all  I  can, 
I  shall  do  my  utmost  to  prevent  my  overdoing  myself. 
Will  this  promise  satisfy  you.  Brother  Lansing?  It  has 
enough  of  the  ego  in  it,  God  forgive  me!  I  can  do 
nothing — am  but  a  weak  pen  in  His  hands,  needing  to 
be  nibbed  every  day,  and  unless  He  gives  me  the  ink  of 
His  Holy  Spirit,  all  my  scratching  will  make  no  im- 
pression." 

But  the  ink  on  the  page  was  hardly  dry  when  his 
health  and  labour  were  forgotten  in  a  thirty-six  hours' 
battle  for  the  life  of  his  first-born.  She  was  one  of 
those  rare  souls  whose  short  careers  seem  like  borrowed 
sunshine  from  a  better  world.  While  frank  and  natural, 
fond  of  play  and  laughter  and  song,  there  was  to  her 
loving,  trustful  child-heart  an  absorbing  interest  in  the 
things  of  heaven,  and  whenever  her  mother  found  leisure 
to  ply  her  needle,  a  little  pleader  was  sure  to  climb  upon 


THE  ANGEL  OF  DEATH  1S3 

her  knee  with  the  petition,  "  Now  tell  me  more  about 
Jesus."  The  previous  summer  her  parents  had  sent  her 
to  Scotland  to  escape  the  heat.  When  the  trying  separa- 
tion was  over  and  the  father  had  clasped  her  again  in 
his  arms  and  thrilled  at  the  sound  of  his  name  from  her 
lips,  some  one  remarked  how  happy  he  must  feel  to 
have  her  back  so  strong  and  well.  His  answer  was 
that  she  struck  him  as  too  angelic  in  appearance  and 
too  good  in  all  her  thoughts  and  ways  to  be  long  im- 
prisoned in  her  little  tenement  of  clay. 

Now  the  little  tenement  seemed  trembling  towards  dis- 
solution, and  to  add  to  the  trials  of  the  night,  the  mother 
tripping  on  the  stair  with  a  kettle  of  boiling  water  in 
her  hand,  was  badly  scalded  on  face,  breast,  and  hands, 
and  for  a  while  needed  as  much  care  as  the  child.  Mr. 
Hogg  acted  the  parts  of  doctor  and  nurse,  with  Miss 
McKown  as  his  valued  assistant.  Cold  water  treatment 
persevered  in  for  hours  lessened  the  suffering  of  the 
mother,  and  by  midnight  rest  was  possible  to  her;  but 
for  the  little  one  all  the  known  remedies  for  croup, 
which  on  previous  occasions  they  had  used  with  un- 
varying success,  failed  to  bring  more  than  temporary 
relief. 

Morning  brought  reviving  hope,  but  as  the  hot  hours 
dragged  their  weary  length,  the  shadow  deepened.  Long- 
ing for  medical  advice,  they  sent  for  the  one  man  in  the 
district  of  whom  they  had  the  right  to  expect  it,  but  the 
only  suggestion  he  could  make  was  to  substitute  an  infu- 
sion of  sweet  almonds  for  water  as  a  beverage.  Towards 
evening  the  little  sufferer,  rousing  from  the  stupor  into 
which  she  had  sunk,  voiced  suddenly  the  thought  that 
was  holding  the  parents'  hearts  in  its  silent  grip. 
"  Mamma,"  she  said,  "  I  am  going  to  die."  To  the  child 
the  thought  brought  neither  fear  nor  regret.    Jesus  was 


134  PIONEER  DAYS  IN  ASSIUT 

coming  for  her,  she  assured  them,  and  when  asked  if 
she  would  not  like  to  stay  a  little  longer  with  those  to 
whom  she  was  so  precious,  she  shook  her  head;  she 
wanted  Jesus  to  come  for  her  now,  and  Hope  (her  little 
brother)  would  come  to  her  afterwards.  For  her  sake 
the  watchers  struggled  for  composure  as,  the  end  seem- 
ing imminent,  she  bade  each  a  loving  good-bye.  They 
talked  to  her  of  heaven,  and  joined  in  singing  her  fa- 
vourite hymns  which  painted  that  land  of  the  soul  in 
colours  dear  to  the  heart  of  a  child. 

But  the  Messenger  lingered  and  twelve  terrible  hours 
ensued,  every  remedy  barren  and  her  struggle  for  breath 
more  acute,  while  with  never  a  murmur  on  her  lips  the 
child  took  refuge  one  minute  on  her  pillow,  the  next 
in  the  haven  of  her  father's  arms.  "  Sing "  was  the 
last  word  she  uttered,  and  with  her  head  nestled  on  his 
shoulder,  the  sunshine  of  a  new  morning  flooding  the 
room,  her  eager  spirit  at  last  took  its  flight  to  the  land 
that  hath  no  need  of  the  sun,  for  the  Lamb  of  God  is 
the  light  thereof. 

A  smile  soon  settled  on  the  little  face  that  had  always 
been  so  appealing  in  its  winsome  love  and  purity,  and 
the  appeal  of  that  smile  found  a  response  in  the  hearts 
that  loved  her.  Not  that  God  had  taken  her  to  Himself, 
but  that  for  four  years  He  had  lent  her  to  them,  an 
"  angel  visitant,"  the  "  sunbeam  "  of  their  home — this 
thought  filled  them  with  wonder,  and  there  mingled  with 
their  sorrow  a  great  and  humble  gratitude. 

The  attitude  seemed  inexplicable  to  the  watching 
Egyptians.  The  devotion  of  the  parents  to  their  child 
had  been  too  visible  and  striking  for  callousness  to  be  a 
credible  explanation  of  a  quiet  submission  that  savoured 
of  mystery  to  women  and  men  accustomed  to  the  wild, 
unrestrained  grief  of  an  Eastern  death-scene.    The  new 


NURSING  THE  SICK  135 

doctrines  had  seemed  to  some  but  a  matter  of  words, 
but  here  they  were  face  to  face  with  a  baffling  reality. 
God  had  made  His  own  choice  of  pen  and  ink  to  write 
His  message  on  their  hearts,  and  the  depth  of  the  im- 
pression made  is  evidenced  by  old  men  and  women  to-day, 
who  after  the  lapse  of  nearly  half  a  century  repeat  the 
smallest  details  of  what  they  saw  and  heard  in  the  mis- 
sion home  that  sad  day,  when  its  first  treasure  was  com- 
mitted to  the  desert  sands.  Thank  God  such  scenes  are 
no  longer  unique  in  Assiut,  and  the  presence  of  the  Com- 
forter now  repeats  the  same  miracle  of  grace  in  many  an 
Egyptian  home. 

Their  bereavement  proved  only  the  beginning  of 
troubles,  and  July  to  December  seemed  one  continuous 
struggle  with  weakness  or  disease.  For  some  days  the 
parents  thought  their  home  was  to  be  left  childless,  and 
for  a  month  and  a  half  they  spent  night  after  night 
from  ten  till  four  in  efforts  to  soothe  their  little  son, 
who,  when  no  longer  dangerously  ill,  remained  weak  and 
nervous,  with  prickly  heat  as  a  nightly  martyrdom.  At 
such  times  the  father  always  appropriated  the  heaviest 
share  of  the  burden,  his  response  to  the  call  of  illness 
ever  prompt  and  whole-hearted.  He  had  been  born 
with  the  nurse's  instincts,  to  which  he  had  added  some 
medical  lore,  casually  acquired.  When  into  the  balance 
were  thrown  the  still  deeper  instincts  of  father  and 
husband,  the  man  was  worthy  of  study.  No  wonder 
fretful  children  coveted  a  place  in  his  strong  arms !  He 
would  carry  them  cheerfully  up  and  down  the  room, 
now  in  one  position,  now  in  another,  spending  liberally 
in  their  service  all  his  wealth  of  mimicry,  his  powers  of 
ready  rhyme,  and  his  store  of  song,  now  with  tireless 
ingenuity  distracting  their  attention  from  their  woes,  now 
lulling  them  to  sleep  with  some  soft  lullaby.     Such  pa- 


136  PIONEER  DAYS  IN  ASSIUT 

tience  in  so  nervous  a  temperament  filled  one  with  won- 
der, and  if  ever  it  gave  way  under  the  strain,  as  hap- 
pened on  the  rarest  occasions  with  sudden  abruptness, 
it  was  not  till  the  onlooker  had  long  since  decided  that 
a  time  had  come  when  only  severer  methods  would  prove 
efficacious. 

Meanwhile,  mission  duties  were  laboriously  accom- 
plished and  the  worker  felt  "  lifeless."  Cholera  appeared 
on  the  northern  horizon  and  crept  steadily  southwards. 
From  Cairo  there  came  news  of  the  death  of  Mrs. 
Lansing  and  the  illness  of  several  native  friends.  The 
daily  mortality  grew  heavy  and  then  dwindled.  Finally 
the  scourge  reached  Assiut.  The  wailing  and  shrieking 
that  at  first  announced  each  new  death  were  suppressed 
by  the  authorities  to  allay  the  cold  terror  that  had  fallen 
on  the  people.  Statistics  were  falsified,  and  rumours  dif- 
ficult to  verify.  The  mission  party  had  previously  decided 
on  a  trip  to  Ramleh  and  a  boat  was  in  readiness  awaiting 
their  departure,  but  they  were  loth  to  leave  so  long  as 
their  presence  might  prove  a  comfort  to  their  native 
friends.  When,  however,  the  plague  seemed  spent,  and 
a  few  days  passed  with  no  word  of  its  recurrence,  they 
gratefully  set  sail  in  search  of  cooling  breezes. 

There  now  appeared  what  a  fellow-missionary  has 
termed  Mr.  Hogg's  greatest  defect  as  a  worker — his  in- 
ability to  rest.  He  was  "  out  of  his  element  when  not 
at  his  regular  work,"  and  the  family  accordingly  spent 
only  sixteen  days  in  their  refuge  by  the  sea.  But  even 
to  one  capable  of  rest  Ramleh  had  already  ceased  to  be 
an  ideal  retreat,  and  it  was  little  wonder  that  the  tired 
missionary  felt  ill  at  ease,  his  days  consumed  by  chit-chat 
with  kindly  visitors,  interrupted  only  by  the  encroach- 
ment of  unwelcome  business.  The  ladies  of  the  house- 
hold were  in  good  health,  the  little  son  had  forgotten 


FIGHTING  WITH  ILL-HEALTH  137 

his  woes,  and  the  father  declared  himself  entirely  recov- 
ered from  his  prolonged  loss  of  sleep.  What  need  then 
to  lengthen  their  stay? 

Early  in  September  they  were  back  at  their  post.  The 
cholera,  which  had  broken  out  with  redoubled  force 
soon  after  their  departure,  was  now  a  thing  of  the  past, 
and  the  schoolboys  gradually  returned  from  the  surround- 
ing villages.  But  no  reserve  of  physical  strength  had 
been  laid  in  store,  and  the  missionary  preached  his  first 
sermon  blindfold.  Ophthalmia,  insomnia,  prostration ! 
A  dismal  succession  of  fetters  to  handicap  an  ardent 
worker!  A  sense  of  utter  weakness  became  his  intimate 
companion,  and  one  cannot  but  admire  the  dogged  fight 
he  maintained.  From  his  first  entry  on  his  duties,  with 
the  exception  of  a  day  and  a  half  when  his  sleeplessness 
was  at  its  worst,  he  never  abandoned  his  pastoral  work 
or  his  daily  teaching,  usually  enduring  four  hours  in  the 
badly  ventilated  schoolroom,  and  always  accomplishing 
a  tale  of  work  amply  sufficient  for  an  average  man  in  full 
health.  "  While  doing  what  I  can  and  all  I  can,"  had 
been  the  proviso  of  his  promise  not  to  overwork,  and 
all  that  he  could  do,  he  did.  Foolish  it  may  have  been, 
even  wrong,  but  it  was  the  folly  of  a  good  man  whose 
brave  spirit  was  stronger  than  his  body  and  who  never 
proved  a  hard  master  to  any  but  himself. 

One  smiles  at  the  optimism  that  leaped  to  the  surface 
whenever  the  combat  with  sickness  for  a  moment  re- 
laxed. When  he  emerged  from  fifteen  days  of  darkness 
with  eyes  at  last  capable  of  school-work,  he  was  at  once 
"  quite  right  now,"  and  while  not  equal  to  the  tackling 
of  a  letter  to  the  Board,  tackled  joyously  the  writing 
of  a  free  Arabic  version  of  Peter  Parley's  Universal 
History,  which  he  jocularly  declared  he  would  make 
"  one  of  the  most  readable  and  popular  works  of  the 


138  PIONEER  DAYS  IN  ASSIUT 

age !  "  When,  after  some  more  dreary  weeks,  in  which 
he  was  almost  continuously  weak  and  miserable,  he  be- 
came reluctantly  convinced  of  his  need  of  a  furlough, 
self-knowledge  led  him  to  bind  his  own  hands  by  an 
immediate  letter  to  the  missionaries  and  the  Board,  so 
conscious  was  he  that,  unless  committed  to  the  project, 
the  first  sign  of  improvement  would  tempt  him  to  its 
abandonment.  In  spite  of  this  precaution,  when  Assiut 
was  deserted  in  December  and  he  had  remained  in  Cairo 
long  enough  to  welcome  a  little  daughter  into  the  world, 
we  find  him  planning  to  return  south  alone  immedi- 
ately after  Presbytery,  and  prevented  from  carrying  out 
the  purpose  only  by  a  timely  return  of  prostrating  weak- 
ness. 

He  remained  in  Cairo  till  March  filling  the  place  of 
absent  missionaries,  and  preaching  several  times  in  Turk- 
ish for  the  Armenian  congregation,  after  six  or  eight 
weeks'  study  of  the  language — which  he  had  taken  up 
as  a  pastime  when  too  enfeebled  to  succeed  in  the  more 
responsible  task  of  Arabic  composition.  When  his  pres- 
ence was  no  longer  needed,  the  family  sailed  for  Scot- 
land, and  a  year  of  "  furlough-rest  "  ensued. 

This  compound  word  is  necessary  for  exactness,  and 
the  initiated  will  understand  its  full  significance.  The 
family  lived  now  in  Edinburgh,  now  in  Dublin,  now  at 
a  hydropathic  in  Aberdeen.  They  were  the  guests  of 
Lady  Aberdeen  at  Haddo  House,  of  the  Maharajah  and 
Maharani  on  their  estate  in  Suffolk,  of  humble  friends 
on  the  coast  of  Fife.  But  everywhere  they  were  way- 
farers and  visitors,  even  when  with  the  dearest  of  rela- 
tives, and  amid  all  the  joys  of  meeting  old  friends  and 
acquaintances  there  was  still  in  such  hurried  migrations 
too  much  of  the  spice  of  life  and  too  little  of  its  staple 
fare  for  restful  satisfaction. 


FURLOUGH  139 

There  was,  too,  the  usual  quota  of  furlough  work. 
Mr.  Hogg  attended  church  assemblies  and  addressed 
meetings.  He  collected  $2,500  towards  the  establish- 
ment of  a  seminary  at  Assiut.  He  wrote  letters  on 
harassing  business  to  the  Board  and  to  the  mission- 
aries. He  went  to  London  to  look  after  an  Alexandrian 
worker  invalided  home  to  undergo  an  operation.  He 
visited  Mr.  Moon  in  Liverpool  to  confer  with  him  as  to 
the  adaptation  to  the  Arabic  language  of  his  embossed 
type  for  the  blind,  and  put  the  results  of  their  confer- 
ence into  practical  form  by  transliterating  the  Arabic 
version  of  Luke's  Gospel  for  immediate  publication, 
making  his  final  correction  on  the  proof  within  three 
days  of  sailing. 

Then  came  the  end,  the  edge  of  the  partings  keener 
because  experience  had  deepened  the  sense  of  life's  un- 
certainties, and  amid  other  partings  one  wrench  sorer 
than  all,  when  the  parents  relinquished  their  baby  to 
the  care  of  friends,  not  daring  to  take  her  from  the 
healthy  north  to  the  risks  of  a  summer  in  Assiut. 

Yet  the  bracing  climate  had  done  its  work,  and  the 
missionary,  his  strength  renewed,  neither  merited  nor 
courted  pity.  He  longed  to  be  back  at  the  work  whose 
foundations  had  cost  him  so  dear,  and  comparing  his 
life-work  with  the  choices  of  others,  he  marvelled  at  the 
strange  ways  of  men.  In  1856,  when  he  took  his  first 
journey  to  Egypt,  it  held  for  him  the  glamour  of  the 
unknown.  In  i860,  when  he  repeated  the  journey,  he 
was  drinking  deeper  of  life's  joys,  and  facing  new  phases 
of  responsibility  and  opportunity.  Now,  in  1867,  the 
attraction  of  the  future  was  as  real  and  more  tangible. 
He  had  begun  his  task,  he  was  putting  his  theories  to 
the  test,  he  had  faith  in  both.  He  had  found  a  sphere 
worthy  of  a  man's  best  mettle,  demanding  the  develop- 


140  PIONEER  DAYS  IN  ASSIUT 

ment  of  his  every  latent  power,  a  work  to  whose  possible 
results  there  seemed  no  limit  but  the  limiting  promise : 
"  According  to  your  faith  be  it  unto  you."  Like  a  war- 
horse  that  has  scented  battle,  he  was  eager  to  be  in  the 
heart  of  the  fray. 


HIS  DAILY  TASK 

Thine  was  the  prophet's  vision. 
The  exultation,  the  divine 
Insanity  of  noble  minds. 
That  never  falters  nor  abates 
But  labours  and  endures  and  waits 
Till  all  that  it  foresees  it  finds. 
Or  what  it  cannot  find,  creates. 

— Longfellow. 

Music  that  gentlier  on  the  spirit  lies 
Than  tired  eyelids  upon  tired  eyes. 

— Tennyson. 

HITHERTO  the  life  we  have  been  tracing  has 
fallen  into  distinct  divisions,  each  marked  by 
some  essential  difference  either  in  its  texture  or 
in  its  surroundings.  The  years  of  mission  life  have  been 
spent  at  three  different  centres,  and  at  none  has  the 
missionary  remained  long  enough  to  build  on  the  founda- 
tions he  so  laboriously  laid.  Everywhere  he  has  left  his 
mark,  but  in  Cairo  and  Alexandria  the  permanent  struc- 
tures subsequently  reared  became  monuments  to  the  la- 
bours of  other  men.  In  1867,  hov^^ever,  Mr.  Hogg  v^as 
allowed  to  return  to  Assiut,  not  now  by  way  of  experi- 
ment, as  in  1865,  but  as  a  permanent  venture.  By  the 
work  done  from  that  base  he  has  since  been  "  named 
and  known,"  and  here  for  the  next  nineteen  years  he 
spent  on  an  average  eight  months  annually. 

This  period,  which  ended  only  with  his  death,  falls 

141 


142  HIS  DAILY  TASK 

like  its  predecessors  into  natural  divisions.  The  centre 
of  interest  changes,  lying  sometimes  within  the  town 
itself,  sometimes  in  regions  beyond,  and  sometimes  in 
subtle  conditions  affecting  the  life  of  the  infant  Church 
and  endangering  the  fulfilment  of  his  dreams.  Through 
all  these  changes,  however,  certain  elements  remain  un- 
altered, and  the  occupations  that  awaited  him  in  1867 
do  not  differ  in  general  outline  from  those  of  subsequent 
years. 

The  station  had  not  been  abandoned  in  his  absence. 
He  found  the  school  in  good  condition,  and  four  members 
had  been  received  into  the  church  who,  along  with  a 
wider  circle  of  friendly  adherents,  now  welcomed  his 
arrival.  But  it  was  not  on  these  but  on  the  training 
of  a  native  ministry  that  his  main  strength  was  hence- 
forth to  be  concentrated.  In  this  work  his  colleagues 
from  time  to  time  took  part,  but  half  of  the  entire 
teaching  was  assigned  to  him,  and  no  appointment  could 
have  given  him  greater  joy. 

In  the  early  years  strange  subjects  were  included  in 
the  theological  curriculum,  to  supplement  the  meagre 
secular  education  of  the  first  candidates.  Church  history 
was  widened  to  take  much  of  the  world  into  its  sweep  ; 
study  of  the  grammar  of  their  own  tongue  accompanied 
study  of  Hebrew  or  of  Greek,  and  Physics  or  Arithmetic 
and  Algebra  were  wedged  in  between  Systematic  The- 
ology, Apologetics,  and  Exegesis.  But  as  years  passed 
and  Assiut  boys'  school  became  first  an  academy  and 
then  a  college  for  the  express  purpose  of  training  teach- 
ers and  pastors,  such  irregularities  were  eliminated,  the 
ranks  of  the  theological  seminary  being  filled  entirely 
from  students  well  grounded  in  secular  education. 

How  slow  at  first  was  the  progress  of  the  theologues 
and  how  arduous  the  work  of  their  professor  will  be 


TEACHER  AND  TRANSLATOR    143 

understood  when  one  realises  that,  English  being  an 
impossible  medium,  the  only  available  text-books  and 
books  of  reference  were  the  Bible  and  the  Shorter  Cate- 
chism. All  else  had  to  be  translated  for  them,  and  to 
this  work  Mr.  Hogg  never  ceased  to  devote  every  hour 
he  could  secure.  As  his  teaching  was  not  always  con- 
fined to  the  theologues  and  occupied  from  three  hours 
a  day  to  six  or  seven,  such  efforts  were  occasionally 
interrupted  for  months  at  a  time.  But  they  were  always 
resumed  at  the  first  opportunity,  the  translator  ever 
cherishing  the  hope  that  a  day  would  come  when  time 
and  money  would  be  available  to  revise  and  publish  his 
work.  Even  in  crude  manuscript  form,  his  translations 
were  highly  valued  and  were  eagerly  copied  and  read 
by  the  small  circle  whose  immediate  daily  need  occa- 
sioned their  production. 

Meanwhile  the  teacher  had  need  of  all  the  enthusiasm 
of  an  idealist  to  sustain  him  in  his  task.  The  quality  of 
the  class  at  the  first  left  much  to  be  desired.  Some  of 
its  members  had  left  the  priesthood  of  the  Coptic  Church 
and  had  already  served  an  apprenticeship  as  evangelists 
and  colporteurs.  As  they  possessed  nothing  beyond  the 
salary  thus  secured,  it  had  not  unnaturally  been  continued 
to  them  when  they  relinquished  their  posts  to  equip 
themselves  more  fully  for  the  work  the  mission  had  at 
heart.  But  the  arrangement  proved  more  generous  than 
wise,  and  from  time  to  time  the  missionary's  letters  drop 
hints  of  anxiety  and  discouragement,  as  he  began  to 
detect  amongst  his  few  disciples  the  spirit  of  the  hireling 
and  to  doubt  the  suitability  and  even  the  sincerity  of 
some.  The  stress  that  he  laid  throughout  their  whole 
course  on  the  practical  training  of  each  worker  "  in  the 
work  for  the  work  "  gave  abundant  opportunity  to  test 
the  character  and  acceptability  of  those  trained.     Every 


144  HIS  DAILY  TASK 

Sabbath  they  were  sent  into  the  surrounding  district, 
and  for  several  months  every  year  they  v^^ere  scattered 
over  the  land.  Under  such  circumstances  the  drones 
could  not  long  escape  detection  and  a  crisis  was  bound 
to  come.  When  it  came,  consultation  w^as  impossible. 
Letters  vi^ere  slow  of  travel  and  the  position  demanded 
immediate  action. 

Once  in  later  years,  when  thwarted  and  delayed  by 
the  duty  of  consulting  his  fellow-workers,  Mr.  Hogg  con- 
fessed to  an  occasional  hunger  for  some  of  the  advan- 
tages of  an  Episcopal  form  of  government,  adding-  with 
a  laugh  and  a  shrug  of  the  shoulder,  "  provided  of  course 
that  I  were  Bishop."  On  the  present  occasion  he  assumed 
the  Bishop's  prerogative,  and  while  writing  lengthy  epis- 
tles to  explain  the  situation  to  his  colleagues,  stepped 
out  on  his  own  responsibility  into  a  new  line  of  policy. 

Within  a  fortnight  all  trouble  was  ended.  The  prin- 
ciple was  laid  down  and  accepted  that  money  aid  to 
theological  students  was  a  charity,  not  a  right,  its  amount 
therefore  to  be  decided  by  need  alone ;  and  that  for 
such  a  service  none  were  worth  training  or  worthy  of 
aid  but  such  as  would  gladly  give  proof  of  their  fitness 
by  self-denial  and  sacrifice.  A  special  arrangement  was 
made  with  the  monks  which  was  accepted  as  a  final 
settlement  of  all  claims,  and  which  left  their  future 
dependent  entirely  upon  their  own  energy  and  accepta- 
bility with  the  people.  The  needs  of  the  other  students 
were  to  be  met  by  the  gifts  of  their  own  countrymen, 
together  with  such  donations  as  missionaries  or  trav- 
ellers might  be  ready  to  bestow ;  and  a  native  committee 
was  appointed  to  disburse  the  funds,  as  they  could  dis- 
cover more  easily  than  foreigners  the  real  financial  con- 
ditions of  the  applicants. 

Decision,    generosity,    and    strong    confidence    in    his 


A  QUESTION  OF  FINANCE  145 

fellow-men  mark  the  missionary's  attitude  throughout. 
Not  a  friend  was  lost  by  the  upheaval.  The  students 
entered  cheerfully  into  the  new  arrangement  and  it  re- 
ceived the  hearty  approval  of  the  native  Church,  while 
the  monks  with  one  exception  soon  acquiesced  in  its 
justice.  The  trouble-maker  had  been  dealt  with  so  fairly 
and  given  such  freedom  of  choice  that  he  seems  to  have 
treasured  no  animosity  against  the  missionary,  but  he  soon 
left  the  ranks  and  returned  to  the  Coptic  Church.  The 
fact  that  the  crisis  had  been  accelerated  by  a  call  to 
fresh  consecration  and  a  day  of  prayer  and  fasting  may 
go  far  to  explain  the  happy  ending  of  a  difficult  situation. 
Apparently  there  is  a  soil  in  which  even  a  financial 
tangle — prolific  root  of  bitterness ! — may  be  robbed  of  its 
evil  fruitage. 

From  this  date  the  work  went  on  more  hopefully,  and 
no  branch  of  his  labours  yielded  him  keener  enjoyment, 
but  to  the  end  it  grieved  him  that  it  should  receive  such 
scant  justice.  He  felt  strongly  that  a  matter  of  so  vital 
importance  claimed  a  man's  whole  powers,  not  a  mere 
fraction  of  his  scattered  energies.  He  longed  to  see  two 
of  the  strongest  men  America  could  yield  consecrating 
their  every  talent  to  the  task  and  attempting  no  other; 
spending  half  the  year  in  teaching  by  word  of  mouth, 
and  the  remaining  months  in  leading  their  students  into 
the  forefront  of  the  battle,  and  inspiring,  guiding,  and 
training  them  in  the  practical  application  of  the  lessons 
taught.  The  missionary-professor  would  thus,  during 
his  tours  with  his  class,  occupy  the  place  of  father, 
brother,  and  general  combined,  and  the  influence  on 
teacher  and  taught  would  be  far-reaching  and  whole- 
some. Action  would  keep  pace  with  thought,  theories 
would  be  promptly  tested,  and  zeal  continually  quickened 
by  a  constant  view  of  the  need  and  a  taste  of  battle, 


146  HIS  DAILY  TASK 

while  much  could  be  learned  by  example  which  the  most 
careful  teaching  must  fail  to  convey. 

While  the  scheme  for  which  he  pleaded  was  never 
inaugurated,  he  worked  towards  his  ideal  till  the  last. 
He  always  led  and  shared  the  evangelistic  labours  of  his 
students  in  the  needy  villages  of  Assiut  province,  and  on 
four  occasions  he  carried  them  with  him  in  the  "  Ibis  " 
to  regions  beyond.  There  for  months  at  a  time  the  days 
were  devoted  to  class  work  and  the  evenings  to  evan- 
gelistic labours  in  the  villages,  di^:ussions  with  inquirers, 
and  the  care  of  all  the  churches,  with  the  students  as  his 
companions  and  helpers.  "  Oh,  it  is  worth  living  for," 
he  wrote  in  1871,  and  the  feeling  only  strengthened  with 
the  years.  "  It  is  worth  living  for  to  train  up  a  dozen 
young  preachers  such  as  this.  Shenoodeh's  lecture 
would  have  done  honour  to  any  young  man  in  Queen 
Street  Hall  *  or  anywhere  else.  I  felt  when  he  had 
done  that  I  must  take  up  Simeon's  words,  '  Now,  Lord, 
lettest  Thou  Thy  servant  depart  in  peace.'  " 

But  his  training  of  theologues  was  not  the  only  un- 
changing element  in  the  nineteen  years  we  are  now 
considering,  and  it  may  render  our  picture  of  them  more 
realistic  if  we  sketch  the  missionary's  daily  programme 
during  the  year  of  his  return,  as  such  a  sketch,  with 
minor  alterations  specially  as  to  the  time  and  type  of 
teaching,  would  apply  with  equal  truth  to  most  of  his 
Assiut  life  and  must  be  borne  in  mind  as  the  common 
background  of  the  events  that  marked  its  course. 

He  was  up  with  the  sun,  and  breakfast  and  family 
prayers  left  still  an  interval  for  personal  use  before  8 :30 
called  him  to  the  public  duties  of  the  day.  His  the- 
ological classes  lasted  four  hours,  from  which  ten  min- 
utes were  stolen  midway  to  allow  teacher  and  taught  a 

*The  Divinity  Hall  in  which  Dr.  Hogg  received  his  training. 


VIEW    Uh'    ASSIUT    DURIXG    NILE    OVERFLOW 


PROTESTANT    CHURCH    AT    ASSIUT 


PROGRAMME  147 

breathing  spell.  After  dinner  at  midday  came  a  short 
rest,  with  a  divan  as  his  bed  and  a  newspaper  first  as 
a  soporific  and  then  as  a  shelter  from  flies,  while  a  cov- 
eted "  forty  winks  "  worked  their  usual  charm.  From 
this  he  rose  refreshed  to  an  afternoon  of  study,  often 
interrupted  by  visitors.  Towards  sunset  his  mule  was 
in  readiness  to  carry  him  through  the  fields  to  the  moun- 
tain or  along  the  bank  of  the  Nile,  where  he  could  forget 
his  work  for  a  spell  in  the  chatter  of  his  little  son,  who 
usually  sat  before  him  on  the  saddle.  Supper  awaited 
his  return,  and  the  moment  it  ended  the  evening's  duties 
began.  It  was  the  missionary's  customary  choice  to 
devote  to  the  boys'  school  (the  college  of  the  future) 
the  opening  hour  of  the  day.  This  being  at  present 
impossible,  he  joined  the  pupils  in  their  study  hour, 
which  began  at  dusk,  and  at  its  close  put  their  drowsiness 
to  flight  by  half  an  hour  of  drill  in  bookkeeping  with 
blackboard  illustrations,  making  the  work  as  practical 
and  entertaining  as  possible  and  trying  to  keep  every 
schoolboy  active  and  alert.  A  second  bell  swelled  the 
audience,  and  the  evening  meeting  that  followed  was 
considered  by  its  leader  in  many  respects  the  most  inter- 
esting part  of  his  day's  work.  It  lasted  an  hour  and 
a  half,  and  its  attendance,  which  increased  in  after  years, 
ranged  this  first  winter  from  twenty-five  to  forty,  not 
including  boys  under  sixteen. 

The  custom  of  holding  a  meeting  every  night  of  the 
week  has  since  played  an  important  part  in  the  evan- 
gelisation of  Egypt.  It  was  introduced  by  Mr.  Hogg  in 
Alexandria  and  Cairo  as  well  as  in  Assiut,  and  has 
naturally  become  almost  universal  in  the  Church,  every 
worker  at  his  out-station  and  every  teacher  in  his  little 
village  school  continuing  the  practice  to  which  they  have 
grown  accustomed  during  their  years  of  preparation,  and 


148  HIS  DAILY  TASK 

gathering  parents  and  pupils  nightly  for  the  study  of 
the  Word.  These  meetings  now  take  the  place  in  Egypt 
that  the  mid-week  prayer  meeting  occupies  in  the  home 
land,  and  as  planned  by  their  originator,  they  supplied 
the  part  of  a  Bible  school  for  adults,  through  which 
he  hoped  to  give  to  the  people  a  more  thorough  religious 
training  than  Is  possible  through  the  slower  medium 
of  the  weekly  sermon. 

In  his  addresses  the  speaker  followed  a  regular 
scheme,  and  monotony  was  carefully  avoided.  On  Sab- 
bath nights,  his  audience  having  already  had  a  sermon 
in  the  morning  and  Sabbath  School  with  a  closing  ad- 
dress in  the  afternoon,  he  took  as  his  subject,  for  the 
sake  of  variety,  a  portion  of  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress; on  Tuesday  it  was  a  chapter  from  Bonar's  Way 
of  Peace;  Thursday  was  devoted  to  missionary  news,  a 
biographical  sketch,  or  a  simple  story;  while  on  the 
intervening  evenings  some  passage  of  Scripture  was  ex- 
pounded. Great  ingenuity  was  exercised  in  altering  the 
character  of  the  meetings  from  year  to  year,  but  it  was 
always  strong  meat  that  he  furnished,  however  finely 
minced  and  carefully  seasoned  it  might  be.  He  loved 
to  take  up  an  epistle  or  other  book  and  go  through  it 
systematically  day  after  day,  or  some  large  theme  like 
the  work  of  the  Spirit  or  the  plan  of  Redemption  which 
might  occupy  several  weeks  of  study ;  but  he  had  so 
much  the  instincts  of  the  teacher  that  such  schemes  of 
lecture  proved  anything  but  wearisome,  and  the  audi- 
ence were  thus  encouraged  to  avoid  irregularity  that 
the  chain  of  connection  might  be  preserved. 

This  was  the  last  public  duty  of  the  day.  At  its 
close,  if  unhindered  by  visitors,  he  would  join  the  ladies 
in  the  sitting-room,  and  compare  notes  with  his  wife, 
who  had  been  meeting  meanwhile  with  a  few  women 


MUSIC  149 

and  girls  in  an  adjoining  room.  But  when  his  brief 
respite  ended,  the  study  door  once  more  closed  upon 
him,  and  he  studied  or  wrote  till  at  a  late  hour  his  wife 
roused  him  to  the  sense  of  time  and  the  duty  of  rest, 
and  they  retired  together  for  the  night,  after  asking 
the  Lord  to  water  the  seed  sown  and  give  grace  to 
labour  on  without  seeing  immediate  fruit. 

In  this  sketch  of  daily  life  one  element  is  omitted 
without  reference  to  which  any  picture  of  the  central 
figure  must  remain  imperfect — the  element  of  music. 
The  reason  for  the  omission  is  obvious,  for  in  1867  Mr. 
Hogg  was  for  a  time  without  an  instrument,  his  old 
harmonium  having  been  sold  and  its  successor  still  un- 
bought,  while  mice  sported  gaily  amongst  the  otherwise 
silent  strings  of  a  piano  split  and  wrecked  beyond  re- 
demption by  the  heat  of  an  Egyptian  sun.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  overestimate  the  influence  music  exercised 
on  his  life,  his  unsatisfied  hunger  during  the  long  inter- 
vals when  it  was  denied  him,  or  his  intense  enjoyment 
when  his  hunger  was  temporarily  appeased.  Unfortu- 
nately his  music-loving  nature  was  condemned  to  life 
in  a  land  of  famine  in  which  every  year  of  plenty  was 
followed  by  many  years  of  drought. 

One  outcome  of  his  musical  enthusiasm  was  more 
costly  than  any  can  guess  who  have  not  laboured  in  the 
same  cause — a  life-long  effort  to  teach  young  Egypt 
harmony. 

Egyptians  love  music,  but  between  the  musical  ideas 
indigenous  in  the  East  and  those  that  the  evolution  of 
centuries  has  attained  in  the  West,  there  is  a  great  gulf 
fixed,  so  that  to  a  Western  ear  the  singing  of  the  East 
is  weird  rather  than  pleasing,  while  to  an  Easterner 
much  that  we  most  admire  is  at  first  more  meaningless 
than  sounding  brass  or  tinkling  cymbal.     In  Egyptian 


150  HIS  DAILY  TASK 

airs  the  intervals  employed  are  unlike  anything  known 
in  the  West,  and  while  Mr.  Hogg  could  sing  them  to 
perfection  and  transcribed  and  preserved  many,  he  felt 
that  there  was  in  the  peculiar  scale  employed  a  radical 
defect.  It  was  a  scale  in  which  few  chords  were  possible, 
and  Egyptian  music  being  thus  confined  to  melody  and 
octaves,  it  seemed  debarred  in  its  very  nature  from 
future  development  and  the  attainment  of  a  high  type 
of  beauty.  His  effort  was  therefore  to  train  the  Eastern 
ear  to  appreciate  the  Western  harmonies,  that  it  might 
share  the  treasure-house  we  have  inherited. 

Having  discovered  that  the  sol-fa  system  was  better 
adapted  for  the  teaching  of  singing  at  sight  than  the 
more  elaborate  old  notation  to  which  he  had  been  accus- 
tomed, he  introduced  it  into  every  school  with  which 
he  had  to  do,  and  the  enthusiasm  and  delight  of  his 
pupils  as  they  learned  to  follow  his  pointer  up  and  down 
the  sol-fa  chart  compensated  for  much  imperfection  in 
their  performance.  As  they  improved,  he  introduced 
part-singing,  in  the  hope  that  they  would  thus  learn 
the  beauty  of  blended  notes,  using  simultaneously  two 
pointers,  one  for  treble  and  one  for  alto,  while  he  carried 
his  class  through  many  of  the  familiar  airs  with  which 
his  memory  was  stored  but  which  the  singers  themselves 
had  never  heard.  He  recorded  with  some  triumph,  in 
1877,  the  incredulity  of  a  visitor  when  told  that  the  air 
and  harmony  of  Auld  Lang  Syne  that  he  had  traced 
on  the  modulator  was  quite  an  extempore  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  boys  and  girls  who  sang  it  easily  and  almost 
in  perfect  rhythm  from  the  first.  Though  often  dis- 
couraged by  the  apparent  evanescence  of  his  successes  in 
improving  the  singing  of  the  people,  he  never  abandoned 
hope  of  final  victory,  and  recent  years  give  ampler 
promise  of  this  in  the  proficiency  now  achieved  by  some 


MUSIC  151 

of  Egypt's  daughters.  The  herculean  nature  of  his  task 
and  its  cost  to  a  sensitive  ear  can  be  appreciated  to  the 
full  only  by  such  as  have  followed  in  his  steps,  and  it 
needed  at  times  all  the  delight  of  the  singers  in  their 
own  imperfect  attainments  to  make  the  game  seem  worth 
the  candle  to  their  eager  but  wearied  teacher. 

There  being  so  little  in  the  country  of  his  adoption  to 
gratify  Mr.  Hogg's  hunger  for  music  and  song,  he  was 
the  more  dependent  on  the  music  of  his  home.  There 
was  no  time-limit  to  his  powers  of  enjoyment:  he  never 
had  enough.  To  hear  the  airs  of  his  native  land  played 
by  a  military  band  left  him  "  all  of  a  tremble,"  and  family 
concerts  were  his  mountain-peaks  of  memory. 

In  his  letters  many  suggestive  pictures  are  preserved. 
Of  nights  alone  with  his  violin  on  the  deck  of  the  "  Ibis," 
when  preaching  at  a  distant  village  had  left  his  brain 
afire,  playing  old  airs  that  carried  his  thoughts  now 
to  his  wife  and  baby  three  hundred  miles  away,  now 
to  his  absent  children  on  the  ocean.  Or  of  evenings 
when  to  play  was  almost  too  great  an  effort  for  jaded 
nerves,  but  a  harmonium  was  at  hand  and  the  wife  to 
use  it,  as  she  sang  for  him  some  hymn  that  had  been 
haunting  his  brain  for  days.  Or  again  it  is  his  eldest 
son,  just  five  years  old,  who  is  at  the  instrument,  playing 
to  the  accompaniment  of  the  fiddle  all  the  tunes  he  has 
heard,  with  enough  of  his  father  in  him  to  be  able  to 
create  already  his  own  simple  chords  and  harmonies, 
the  happy  pair  making  together  such  music  as  the  proud 
parent  declared  to  have  been  well  worth  listening  to. 

The  dry  hot  climate  fought  against  him,  and  his  efforts 
to  remedy  its  ravages  were  indefatigable.  Finding  a 
new  harmonium  dumb  on  his  return  to  an  empty  house 
after  three  month's  absence,  he  laboured  two  nights  and 
a  day  to  restore  its  voice.     As  failure  would  involve  a 


152  HIS  DAILY  TASK 

silent  future,  there  was  a  touch  of  desperation  in  the 
struggle  as  the  second  night  lengthened  without  result. 
"  I  have  seldom  felt  more  inclined  to  take  a  good  hearty 
cry,"  he  wrote  at  last  in  the  small  hours,  and  tried  to 
fix  his  mind  on  the  harps  of  heaven.  Sleep,  however, 
reawakened  a  more  earthly  hope,  and  by  some  ingenious 
expedient  he  at  last  reached  a  measure  of  success,  the 
instrument  doctored  annually  remaining  a  solace  for 
years. 

Long  after,  a  second-hand  piano  was  secured  that 
had  weathered  safely  the  heat  of  Middle  Egypt,  but  for 
this,  too,  the  temperature  within  the  thin  walls  of  the 
Assiut  home  proved  fatal.  One  of  his  home  letters 
describes  the  condition  to  which  it  was  reduced : 

"  I  worked  at  our  piano  two  afternoons  this  week  to 
put  it  in  order  and  in  tune  for  Mrs.  Elmir  Lansing.  I 
had  a  bad  attack  of  the  blues  in  consequence.  The  first 
day  I  found  that  my  attempts  to  keep  away  the  moths 
by  stuffing  it  with  tobacco  had  been  a  failure.  The 
strikers  were  not  much  injured,  but  all  the  cloth  and 
padding  around,  above  and  beneath  the  finger-board,  was 
converted  into  living  dust.  I  cleaned  it  all  out  and  tuned 
the  piano — though  the  lower  end  of  each  striker  came 
down  upon  a  screw  nail  instead  of  a  piece  of  chamois 
leather,  and  produced  a  sound  as  if  you  were  playing 
on  clappers.  Next  day  I  found  most  of  the  strings  had 
fallen  a  third  of  an  octave,  and  so  I  went  to  tuning  it  a 
second  time.  I  had  tuned  about  an  octave  and  a  half, 
and  was  getting  somewhat  encouraged  by  the  result, 
when  all  of  a  sudden  the  wood  in  which  the  pegs  are 
placed  began  to  crack  and  split  under  the  strain,  and  ulti- 
mately burst  out  half  an  inch  or  more.  '  There  goes 
£35,'  was  all  I  could  say.  After  a  minute  or  so  I  added, 
'  Well,  it  is  one  consolation  that  the  girls  are  not  coming 
out  next  winter.'  So  saying,  I  picked  up  my  tools  and 
left  the  thing  in  disgust ;  and,  as  I  said.  I  had  a  bad 
attack  of  the  blues  the  rest  of  the  evening." 


MUSIC  153 

Even  on  this  occasion,  however,  he  refused  to  accept 
his  defeat  as  final,  and  returned  from  Scotland  a  year 
later  with  such  materials  as  might  render  a  second 
onslaught  more  effective.  The  results  were  gratifying, 
but  as  the  injury  was  in  part  irreparable  the  piano  was 
kept  musical  only  by  his  retuning  certain  octaves  every 
few  nights. 

When  one  recalls  his  absorption  in  his  mission  work 
and  the  value  he  set  upon  time,  these  voluntary  labours, 
perseveringly  repeated  without  a  suggestion  from  the 
players,  become  peculiarly  revealing.  Possessed  by  a 
passion  so  strong,  it  was  natural  that  in  years  of  dearth 
he  should  take  refuge  from  the  "  wild  longings  "  that 
at  times  assailed  him  in  picturing  an  environment  answer- 
ing to  his  need  in  that  home  of  the  soul  where  the 
cravings  of  West  and  East  will  alike  attain  perfect  satis- 
faction in  diviner  harmonies  than  ear  has  yet  heard  or 
it  has  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive. 


XI 

LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

They  shall  build  the  old  wastes,  they  shall  raise  up  the 
former  desolations — the  desolations  of  many  generations. 

— Isaiah  lxi. 

Consider  first  what  you  mean  when  you  say  a  building 
is  well  constructed  or  well  built;  you  do  not  merely  mean 
that  it  answers  its  purpose, — this  is  much,  and  many 
modern  buildings  fail  of  this  much;  but  if  it  be  verily 
well  built,  it  must  answer  this  purpose  in  the  simplest 
way,  and  with  no  over-expenditure  of  means. 

— Ruskin:  Stones  of  Venice. 

THE  years  1867  to  1871  saw  the  establishment  of 
an  Evangelical  Church  in  the  centre  of  Upper 
Egypt,  not  as  a  foreign  body  but  as  native  to  the 
land,  the  blood  in  its  veins  by  the  w^armth  of  its  flow- 
promising  growth  and  development,  and  carrying  in  it 
the  germs  of  future  independence. 

Persecution,  which  at  the  close  of  the  period  might 
have  proved  but  a  bracing  breeze,  broke  out,  as  it  seemed 
to  the  workers,  prematurely.  The  missionary  and  his 
family,  on  their  return  from  Scotland  in  1867,  had 
hardly  yet  re-established  themselves  in  their  Assiut  home 
when  the  Coptic  Patriarch  sailed  for  the  south. 

It  was  the  sacred  season  of  Lent,  and  the  move  awak- 
ened questionings  even  in  the  minds  of  the  loyal.  When 
in  all  the  ages  of  the  past  had  an  Earthly  Christ,  High 
Priest,  Head,  and  King  of  the  Coptic  Church,  profaned 
the  strictest  fast  of  the  year  by  a  round  of  visits  that 

154 


THE  PATRIARCH  COMES  TO  ASSIUT     155 

entailed  feasting  and  carousing  in  his  honour  at  every 
point  of  his  journey?  It  was  said  to  be  but  one  of  his 
periodic  tours  to  encourage  the  children  of  his  flock, 
but  the  children  of  the  flock  were  not  deceived  by  such 
public  announcements.  So  great  an  innovation,  they 
deemed,  could  bode  no  good.  The  Patriarch  himself 
soon  made  no  secret  of  the  truth,  that  his  one  purpose 
was  to  root  out  Protestantism,  and  as  a  government 
steamer  had  been  placed  at  his  disposal  and  a  guard 
of  soldiers  in  every  town  awaited  his  pleasure,  it  seemed 
evident  that  the  Khedive  favoured  the  end  he  had  in 
view. 

Ismail  Pasha  felt  his  tyranny  endangered  by  the  pres- 
ence of  missionaries  in  Egypt.  They  would  diffuse 
knowledge — amongst  an  oppressed  race  the  knowledge 
that  is  power,  amongst  their  own  people  the  knowledge 
of  wrongs  that  might  arouse  the  indignant  interference 
of  the  West.  To  ruin  their  work  would,  he  judged,  be 
the  safest  and  surest  way  to  rid  himself  of  the  workers, 
and  the  Coptic  Patriarch  might  prove  a  convenient  cat's- 
paw  by  which  to  reach  his  prey  without  burning  his 
fingers.  But  Ismail  had  other  tools  at  his  command 
which  a  veiled  hint  from  high  quarters  would  suffice  to 
set  in  motion,  and  long  before  the  Patriarch  had  reached 
Assiut  on  his  mission  of  destruction,  the  hint  had  been 
given,  and  the  enrolment  of  boys  in  the  mission  school 
had  dropped  in  consequence,  through  the  action  of  the 
local  officials,  from  75  to  19. 

To  understand  fully  the  force  at  work  one  must  recall 
the  slavery  of  the  period.  In  Egypt,  army  conscription 
is  still  a  dread  event  to  be  evaded  at  any  sacrifice,  but 
before  the  days  of  the  British  occupation  it  meant  not 
only  the  breaking  of  family  ties  but  banishment  for  life 
and  a  hopeless  career  darkened  by  hardship,  poverty, 


156  LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

and  contempt.  At  that  time  there  reigned  also  a  twin 
terror  which,  while  in  one  sense  of  more  temporary- 
character,  brought  hunger,  debt,  and  ruin  to  many  a 
family.  A  sudden  levy  of  forced  labourers  would  leave 
whole  districts  in  want,  their  fields  unsown  or  their 
harvests  unreaped,  while  roads,  railways,  or  canals  were 
being  created  at  the  Viceroy's  bidding.  Egypt  was  im- 
proved, while  the  Egyptians  were  plundered  and  com- 
pelled to  work  under  a  taskmaster's  lash,  with  the  gall 
of  bitterness  in  their  hearts  and  neither  food,  pay,  nor 
implements  provided  them. 

It  was  easy  for  the  wealthy  to  escape  from  such  ills, 
for  in  Egypt  all  locks  turn  to  a  golden  key;  but  in  the 
days  of  Mohammed  AH  a  key  of  different  metal  had  been 
provided  for  a  certain  class  of  the  community,  and  this 
was  still  available  even  to  the  poor.  To  make  education 
popular,  schoolboys,  though  of  working  age,  were  given 
a  certificate  of  exemption  from  the  army  and  public 
works  on  passing  the  most  simple  of  examinations  in 
religious  subjects.  Every  school,  however  inefficient  and 
unattractive,  was  filled  at  the  rumour  of  an  approaching 
conscription  with  evanescent  pupils  of  doubtful  age, 
who  were  drilled  in  reciting  the  Koran  or  the  Coptic 
ritual  till  the  scourge  swept  past.  Such  a  rumour  was 
now  afloat,  and  with  it  a  whisper  that  the  local  officials 
would  henceforth  disregard  the  certificates  of  Protestant 
schools.  They  were  the  only  schools  that  trained  thought 
as  well  as  memory,  and  that  had  never  abused  their 
privileges.  Yet  when  test  cases  arose,  the  whisper  proved 
correct.  Certificates  signed  by  the  missionary  were  re- 
jected, and  when  Mr.  Hogg  complained  at  headquarters, 
the  Mudir,  though  politely  feigning  redress,  left  the 
changed  conditions  unremedied.  The  effect  was  imme- 
diate, and  a  few  boys  from  neighbouring  villages  were 


ARRIVAL  OF  THE  PATRIARCH  157 

all  who  still  dared  to  attend  the  school  of  their  choice 
on  the  day  when  the  Patriarch  arrived.  Riding  upon  an 
ass  gorgeously  accoutred,  he  made  his  triumphal  entry 
into  Assiut,  accompanied  by  an  excited  mob  shouting, 
"  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David,  Blessed  is  He  that 
Cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 

Stories  of  the  Patriarch's  doings  had  preceded  his 
arrival.  His  power  was  declared  to  be  unlimited.  His 
victims  were  banned  as  foes  of  the  government  and 
beyond  the  pale  of  justice.  Everywhere  it  was  said  he 
summoned  to  his  presence  those  tainted  with  reform  and 
poured  out  on  them  the  vials  of  his  wrath,  administer- 
ing a  few  days  in  prison,  a  rough  beating,  or  even  the 
more  cruel  bastinado,  and  sending  them  back  to  life 
with  a  threat  of  the  galleys  or  the  White  Nile  eating 
at  their  vitals. 

At  Assiut  the  Patriarch  felt  forced  by  the  .presence  of 
the  watchful  missionary  to  avoid  violence  and  use  no 
civil  measures  to  enforce  his  will.  Bills  of  excommunica- 
tion and  a  bonfire  of  Bibles  and  religious  books  were 
his  heaviest  artillery.  The  only  avowed  Protestant, 
native  to  the  place,  was  the  wealthy  American  Consular 
Agent,  whose  position  rendered  him  scatheless.  But  the 
villages  around  called  for  attention,  and  having  berated 
and  frightened  the  progressives  at  Motiah,  and  put  out 
of  office  an  evangelical  priest  at  Beni  Alage,  he  turned 
his  attention  to  the  decimated  school.  He  could  secure 
for  the  army  levy  the  remaining  nineteen,  could  he  but 
learn  the  names  of  their  parents  and  of  the  villages  from 
which  they  hailed. 

His  efforts  to  procure  a  Judas  brought  upon  him  the 
rebuke  of  the  boy  he  sought  to  suborn,  head  pupil  of 
the  Coptic  school  but  a  firm  friend  of  the  Protestants. 
"  I  can't  do  that,"  was  his  sturdy  answer  to  the  demand 


158  LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

made  of  him.  "  It  would  be  very  wrong."  One  likes 
to  picture  the  astonished  face  of  the  pontiff,  used  to 
the  obsequious  flattery  of  men,  when  faced  by  a  child's 
frank  judgment  on  his  plan.  Was  there  some  faint 
sense  of  shame  as  the  interview  ended,  to  match  the 
revulsion  in  the  heart  of  his  reprover,  who  as  one  of 
the  youthful  deacons  of  his  church  had  led  in  the  ho- 
sannas  that  had  greeted  the  Patriarch's  arrival? 

But  such  revulsion  was  not  confined  to  the  heart  of 
a  boy.  Many  had  been  alienated  by  the  words  and 
deeds  of  their  spiritual  head.  "  Caiaphas  and  Pilate 
crucified  Jesus  and  the  Patriarch  burned  His  Gospel " 
was  the  subject  of  an  ex-priest's  sermon  that  echoed 
and  re-echoed  with  startling  effect  after  the  ashes  of 
the  patriarchal  bonfires  had  been  scattered  by  the  winds. 
Though  schools  languished  and  four  full-fledged  Prot- 
estants recanted,  while  half-enlightened  friends  disap- 
peared into  safer  haunts  like  timid  birds  that  have  seen 
the  shadow  of  a  passing  hawk,  the  evangelical  cause 
had  received  no  vital  injury,  and  the  Patriarch's  cause 
no  lasting  help. 

Mr.  Hogg  wrote  long  Arabic  letters  full  of  counsel 
and  encouragement  to  frightened  converts  in  the  south, 
and  long  English  letters  full  of  the  latest  news  to 
anxious  colleagues  in  the  north,  but  the  whole  mission 
might  have  awaited  with  calmness  the  reaction  that  was 
sure  to  follow  had  not  the  Khedive's  connection  with  the 
course  pursued  proclaimed  silently  but  effectively 
throughout  the  land  that  henceforth  he  who  injured  a 
Protestant  might  do  so  with  impunity.  Three  cases 
occurred  involving  precedents  that  endangered  the  future. 

In  the  beginning  of  May,  Gergis  Bashetly,  a  Prot- 
estant school  teacher  in  Ekhmim,  at  whom  Catholics  and 
Copts  had  hurled  seven  bulls  of  excommunication  with- 


DEFENDING  THE  PERSECUTED        159 

out  effect,  was  slapped  on  the  face  by  the  Patriarch, 
his  house  broken  into  and  his  person  mauled  at  the 
Patriarch's  instigation  by  the  soldiery  and  mob,  and  he 
with  his  son  ordered  out  of  town  under  threat  of  death. 

In  June  some  certificates  of  exemption  presented  by 
Protestant  schoolboys  were  disregarded  by  the  officials 
in  their  villages,  though  signed  not  only  by  Mr.  Hogg, 
but  at  his  request  by  the  Mudir  of  Assiut;  and  when 
the  matter  was  appealed  to  Assiut  headquarters,  the 
deputy-governor  arraigned  the  boys  instead  of  the  de- 
linquents, and  their  leader,  Iskaros,  was  bastinadoed 
and  thrown  bleeding  into  prison  because  he  refused  to 
declare  his  statement  a  lie  and  buy  forgiveness  by  joining 
the  Copts. 

In  September,  three  leaders  of  the  Protestants  at  Kus, 
long  engaged  in  government  service,  amongst  them  Fam, 
a  man  universally  admired  for  his  commanding  char- 
acter and  unassailable  honour,  were  in  fulfilment  of  the 
parting  threat  of  the  Patriarch,  "  ordered  to  the  Sudan," 
a  euphemistic  expression  that  covered  a  plot  to  consign 
them  to  a  grave  in  the  river  on  reaching  the  limits  of 
Egypt. 

These  cases  differed  from  others  in  that  the  facts  were 
clear,  evidence  available,  and  the  sufferers  of  a  type  to 
withstand  threats  and  bribes.  The  missionaries  handled 
them  with  vigour. 

Egypt  has  long  since  recognised  as  common  justice 
the  right  of  the  Copt  to  make  unmolested  choice  of  a 
school  or  church,  and  has  almost  forgotten  the  hard 
campaign  by  which  the  privilege  was  wearily  won 
through  long  slow  battles  of  the  pen.  It  would  take  the 
art  of  a  Dickens  to  describe  adequately  the  ability  dis- 
played by  those  in  authority  in  paving  delays  with  fair 
promises,  evading  incriminating  evidence,  and  escaping 


160  LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

tlie  trammels  of  truth.  Mr.  Lansing  and  Mr.  Hogg 
fought  side  by  side  in  the  struggle  and  between  them 
burned  much  midnight  oil.  Mr.  Hogg's  two  months' 
rest  in  Ramleh  has  left  its  record  in  245  quarto  pages 
written  by  his  hand  on  the  one  subject,  and  many  a 
page  was  added  to  the  sum  after  he  returned  to  the 
south.  The  British  and  American  Consul  Generals  both 
entered  the  field,  and  the  former  fought  with  persistence 
and  ability  in  the  forefront  of  the  battle. 

It  was  in  the  third  case  that  the  first  decisive  victory 
was  won.  The  presence  at  the  time  on  the  scene  of 
action  of  Mr.  Hogg  and  Mr.  Currie,  a  missionary  of  most 
attractive  qualities,  who  had  recently  settled  at  Kus, 
had  the  effect  of  delaying  the  local  agents  of  the  enemy, 
while  speeding  each  move  for  the  rescue.  The  Khedive 
was  nettled  and  harassed  by  the  growing  publicity  given  to 
a  course  which  he  had  pursued  with  the  utmost  caution, 
avoiding  written  orders  and  ensuring  the  silence  of  his 
subordinates.  He  saw  that  the  cat's-paw  had  fallen  short 
of  his  purpose,  and  to  avoid  trouble  he  dropped  his  weak 
ally  and  turned  to  pacify  his  tormentors.  In  the  undoing 
as  in  the  weaving  of  his  plot  he  continued  to  hide  his 
hand,  but  the  journey  of  Fam  and  his  companions  ended 
abruptly  at  Esneh,  and  when  after  twenty-four  days  in 
the  court  of  the  prison  they  returned  unscathed  to  their 
friends,  the  whole  country  was  quick  to  recognise  the 
full  significance  of  the  fact.  Timid  adherents  could  steal 
forth  from  their  retreats,  and  the  ousted  school-master 
return  safely  to  Ekhmim.  The  reign  of  terror  had 
ended. 

A  year  and  a  half  passed  before  the  infant  church  at 
Assiut  was  called  to  weather  its  next  storm,  and  in  the 
interval  it  had  grown  and  strengthened.  It  was  in  Mr. 
Hogg's  absence   during  the  summer  of   1868   that  the 


TANASSA  JOINS  THE  PROTESTANTS     161 

turning  tide  began  to  rise  with  a  rapidity  and  certainty 
that  startled  the  public.  "  This  is  to  prove  that  it  is 
God's  work,  not  mine,"  was  the  missionary's  comment  as 
he  heard  from  afar  the  echoes  of  a  movement  for  which 
he  had  worked  and  prayed. 

The  Patriarch  had  realised  at  length  that  the  Book 
he  had  burned  was  indestructible,  and  that  if  his  Church 
was  to  rally  her  forces  she  must  hold  it  out  to  the  people, 
not  snatch  it  from  their  grasp.  The  Assiut  clergy 
were  surprised  by  a  written  order  from  their  Head  to 
arrange  an  hour  for  the  daily  public  study  of  the  Bible, 
with  a  notice  that  in  future  none  would  be  eligible  for 
the  priestly  office  who  were  not  familiar  with  its  con- 
tents. As  behoved  them,  they  answered  with  ready  com- 
pliance, but  the  order  was  irksome  and  nothing  was 
done. 

Mr.  Hogg,  before  leaving,  had  urged  his  friends  to 
consider  his  absence  their  great  opportunity  and  give 
to  others  what  they  themselves  had  received.  Five  men 
and  a  boy,  poring  over  the  Word  in  secret,  heard  the  call 
repeated  by  a  Voice  they  could  not  disobey.  Being  still 
members  of  the  ancient  Church,  they  set  themselves  to 
secure  its  reform,  but  their  repeated  appeals  to  the  leader 
of  the  Copts  to  give  effect  to  the  Patriarch's  instructions 
were  met  by  friendly  promises  and  continued  inaction. 

Suddenly  the  town  was  shaken  by  the  astounding  news 
that  Tanassa,  one  of  their  number,  and  the  champion  of 
the  Copts,  had  joined  the  Protestants.  It  was  as  though 
Goliath  had  deserted  to  the  camp  of  Israel.  People 
flocked  unconvinced  to  the  house  where  the  six  were 
gathered,  to  test  the  truth  of  the  rumour.  A  tract  was 
being  read  aloud,  "  The  winnowing  fan  of  Kus,"  pur- 
porting to  be  a  discussion  between  a  Coptic  priest  and 
a  Protestant.     Tanassa,  urged  on  by  the  boy,  declared 


162  LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

frankly  that  the  Protestant  contentions  were  Scriptural, 
and  should  be  accepted  by  the  Coptic  Church,  though  con- 
trary to  the  teaching  of  the  Fathers.  Dismay  reigned 
supreme.  Tanassa  and  Shenoodeh  had  been  bribed  by  the 
foe!  Better  had  they  become  Mohammedans  or  Jews! 
The  wrath  of  God  would  descend  upon  them! 

It  was  not  till  public  disgrace  had  increased  the  zeal 
and  courage  of  those  vilified,  and  led  to  their  opening 
a  nightly  public  meeting  in  Tanassa's  house,  that  the 
patriarchal  order  was  at  last  executed.  Henceforth  the 
gatherings  were  removed  from  the  house  of  the  tainted 
to  the  room  where  once  an  excommunicating  Bishop  had 
cringed  before  an  excommunicated  missionary,  and 
where  Tanassa  the  champion  had  for  the  first  time  re- 
fused a  challenge  and  taken  refuge  in  fair  phrases.  The 
room  now  witnessed  nightly  the  same  unequal  contest 
between  ignorance  and  knowledge,  between  upholders  of 
tradition  and  seekers  after  truth.  Even  when  at  last  the 
priests  angrily  forbade  all  comment  from  the  audience, 
the  words  of  Scripture  which  they  stumblingly  read  and 
could  not  explain  carried  the  conviction  to  the  heart  of 
the  hearers  that  the  Bible  was  on  the  side  of  the  Prot- 
estants. When  Romans  was  reached,  the  priests  in  de- 
spair announced  that  henceforth  the  commentaries  of 
the  Fathers  would  be  read  along  with  the  text.  The 
audience  ceased  to  gather.  The  meeting,  but  one  month 
old,  had  received  its  death-blow. 

Such  were  the  conditions  when  Mr.  Hogg  returned 
to  Assiut.  An  ovation  awaited  him.  Visitors  flocked 
to  the  house  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  and  eighty-two  were 
at  the  first  evening  meeting,  besides  such  as  crowded 
around  windows  and  doors.  The  Coptic  Bishop  launched 
haram  *   after  haram  at   the  offenders,  but   while  the 

*A  bill  of  excommunication. 


LETTER  TO  THE  MAHARAJAH         163 

women  of  their  households  wept  and  bewailed  them, 
the  excommunicated  themselves  paid  little  heed  and  the 
public  began  to  laugh  at  the  futility  of  clerical  rage. 

In  January,  1869,  Mr.  Hogg  wrote  cheerfully  to  the 
Maharajah  of  the  prospects  of  the  work : 

"  Eight  times  a  week  the  place  in  which  we  meet  is 
packed  to  the  door  with  an  attentive  and  interested  audi- 
ence. Every  available  inch  is  utilised.  The  younger 
boys  sit  around  my  feet  on  every  side  and  up  on  the 
window-sills,  while  all  the  benches  are  occupied  by  men 
and  large  boys,  and  an  adjoining  room  is  filled  with 
women  and  their  babies.  We  sometimes  have  eight 
babies,  and — well,  bless  them !  they  don't  behave  any 
worse  than  a  Maharajah's  young  hopefuls  would  do  if 
cooped  up  in  like  fashion  for  a  couple  of  hours  in  a  little 
dark  room ! 

"  At  our  first  Communion  after  our  return  from  Cairo 
we  received  17  men,  women,  and  boys,  and  11  men  were 
received  six  weeks  afterwards.  That  makes  48  who 
have  been  admitted  into  membership  since  our  return 
from  Scotland.  On  the  second  occasion  there  were  from 
130  to  150  present,  and  we  had  a  most  delightful  service 
in  the  open  court  despite  the  cold  weather.  After  service 
we  held  a  congregational  meeting,  and  it  was  agreed  to 
go  forward  forthwith  to  build  a  church  edifice.  A  site 
was  secured  that  night  and  the  money  paid  down  next 
morning.  The  members  are  to  build  a  church  and  a 
dwelling  house  for  their  future  pastor,  and  they  do  not 
ask  a  single  cent  from  anybody.  What  think  you  of 
that?  It  is  indeed  the  Lord's  doing  and  it  is  very  mar- 
vellous in  our  eyes.  It  will  cost  probably  five  or  six 
hundred  pounds.  Most  of  it  is  to  be  met  by  two  men, 
our  friend  Wasif  and  a  new  friend  whom  I  should  like 
you  to  meet — Hanna  Wissa." 

Shortly  after,  a  passing  event  shed  on  the  cause  a 
fleeting  gleam  of  public  honour.  King  Edward  VII,  then 
Prince  of  Wales,  was  wintering  on  the  Nile,  and  the 


164  LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

royal  party  spent  a  few  hours  at  Assiut.  As  it  was 
rumoured  that  they  would  visit  some  interesting  caves 
in  the  mountain,  the  mission  household,  old  and  young, 
had  sallied  forth  in  the  hope  of  gaining  a  brief  glimpse 
of  them  there.  But  the  royal  visitors  selected  the  mission 
house  instead  as  their  rendezvous,  wishing  to  see  the 
school  of  which  they  had  heard.  When  the  Deputy- 
Governor  entered  the  court  to  announce  their  arrival,  the 
boys  fled  in  terror,  pursued  by  visions  of  the  slavery  of 
forced  labour  in  the  public  works.  But  a  few  courageous 
souls  stood  their  ground  and  a  crowd  gathered,  while 
the  Prince,  finding  that  some  knew  English,  examined 
them  in  reading  and  geography  in  which  they  shone 
with  conscious  pride.  A  large  map  hung  in  the  court, 
and  the  boys  reported  that  after  they  had  answered  cor- 
rectly a  dozen  questions,  one  of  the  Prince's  companions 
asked  to  be  shown  the  source  of  the  White  Nile.  In 
this  they  all  failed.  In  fact  the  map  itself  failed,  for 
the  great  lake-home  of  the  mysterious  river  was  but  a 
recent  discovery.  The  questioner  then  came  to  their 
aid,  told  them  that  he  himself  had  discovered  the  source 
of  the  Nile,  and  showed  them  where  the  vast  lakes  lay. 
It  was  Sir  Samuel  Baker. 

The  boys  reported  further  that  the  Prince  and  Prin- 
cess were  accompanied  by  a  lady  who  was  as  tall  as  a 
pole  and  had  a  dress  like  a  ladder,  with  flounces  for 
rungs !  But  even  such  interesting  details  hardly  com- 
pensated Mr.  Hogg  for  his  absence.  He  hastened  to  the 
steamer,  and  though  delayed  by  a  perverse  and  weak- 
legged  donkey,  reached  it  in  time  to  receive  a  kindly 
welcome  and  answer  further  questions  regarding  the 
work.  The  Prince  expressed  great  pleasure  at  what  he 
had  seen,  and  the  tone  of  the  Princess's  voice  when  she 
remarked  that  the  missionary  was  Scotch  won  his  heart 


ICONOCLASTS  165 

at  once,  as  betokening  a  warm  affection  for  Auld  Scotia's 
children.  Only  one  face  looked  black  during  the  inter- 
view— the  face  of  the  Deputy-Governor  who  had  bas- 
tinadoed the  schoolboy  that  would  not  desert  the  Prot- 
estants. 

But  adversity  was  now  at  hand  and  discredit  was  soon 
to  fall  on  the  cause  thus  publicly  honoured.  In  the 
house  of  Mr.  Hanna  Wissa,  the  missionary's  "  new 
friend,"  a  few  kindred  spirits  sat  late  one  evening  read- 
ing their  favourite  Book.  "  And  the  Lord  said  unto 
Gideon,  Throw  down  the  altar  of  Baal  that  thy  father 
hath,  and  cut  down  the  Asherah  that  is  by  it.  And  it 
came  to  pass,  because  he  feared  his  father's  household 
and  the  men  of  the  city  so  that  he  could  not  do  it  by 
day,  that  he  did  it  by  night."  Near  at  hand,  on  the 
walls  of  an  ancient  church,  hung  the  "  Asherah  "  of  their 
race,  the  pictures  of  the  intercessors  before  which  the 
people  bowed  in  prayer.  Was  Gideon's  call  not  their 
call?  Why  not  go  at  once,  while  their  hearts  were  hot, 
and  purify  their  church's  worship  from  its  idolatry? 
They  prayed  earnestly  for  God's  blessing,  and  stole  out 
into  the  silent  street.  Tanassa's  house  adjoined  the 
church  and  from  its  roof  entrance  to  the  building  was 
easy.  In  his  absence  his  brothers  helped  the  conspirators. 
The  task  was  triumphantly  accomplished,  and  again  join- 
ing in  prayer,  the  devoted  band  returned  exultant  to 
their  homes. 

But  Old  Testament  stories  may  prove  dangerous  prece- 
dents and  actions  that  seem  parallel  lead  to  divergent  is- 
sues, as  the  sequel  proved. 

The  Coptic  Church  was  filled  next  morning  by  a  wail- 
ing and  excited  people.  Dismay,  fear,  and  rage  were 
inextricably  mingled.  Under  threat  of  excommunication, 
the  whole  sect  was  summoned  to  appear,  and  marched 


166  LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

in  a  body  to  the  Governor  to  demand  redress.  Investi- 
gation soon  led  to  discovery,  the  names  of  the  culprits 
being  revealed  by  Tanassa's  brother  while  under  the  lash. 
When  brought  to  book  the  men  surprised  their  accusers 
by  making  no  denial,  telling  frankly  their  story  and 
claiming  God's  warrant  in  the  Bible.  The  Copts  were 
exasperated  at  being  exposed  before  the  Moslems  as 
worshippers  of  pictures,  and  the  Moslems  were  amazed 
by  a  glimpse  of  a  new  Christianity  and  the  discovery 
that  the  Protestant's  Bible  forbade  idolatry.  "  Truly," 
they  exclaimed,  "  this  is  the  Book  of  God."  The  eight 
men  were  sent  to  prison  to  await  judgment  on  the  case. 

Perhaps  only  to  a  resident  in  Egypt  can  the  full  force 
of  the  cataclysm  be  immediately  apparent.  There  the 
names  involved  and  the  interests  at  stake  explain  at  once 
the  tumultuous  excitement  it  awakened.  The  Coptic 
clergy  saw  in  the  event  the  finger  of  God.  The  name 
of  Hanna  Wissa  had  become  hateful  to  them  and  God 
had  delivered  their  enemy  into  their  hands. 

The  Governor  granted  Mr.  Hanna  Wissa's  brother 
twenty-four  hours  in  which  to  conciliate  his  foes,  but 
they  were  as  deaf  to  appeals  as  an  angry  sea,  and,  like 
the  chief  priests  of  old,  "  stirred  up  the  people,"  two 
thousand  of  whom  invaded  the  Governor's  presence  to 
demand  the  full  satisfaction  of  the  law.  As  punishment 
was  deserved,  no  effort  was  made  to  secure  consular 
help,  and  when  peace  measures  failed,  Mr.  Hogg  awaited 
w'th  his  friends  in  unceasing  prayer  the  execution  of 
justice,  cheering  meanwhile  the  poor  men  whose  exulta- 
tion had  evaporated,  and  turning  the  prison  into  a  school- 
house  where  all  who  entered  learnt  without  effort  and 
without  charge  lessons  that  they  could  not  soon  forget. 

A  week  later  the  Moslem  feast  of  Fida  dawned,  and 
Assiut  was  electrified  by  a  telegram  from  the  Khedive 


PARDON  AND  A  NEW  CHARGE         167 

granting  the  culprits  free  pardon.  Moslems  joined  with 
Protestants  in  their  rejoicing,  about  200  of  them  being 
present  among  the  hundreds  who  gathered  in  the  court 
of  Mr.  Wissa's  house  to  welcome  the  prisoner  home.  A 
thanksgiving  service  was  held,  and  the  missionary  sought 
to  make  the  most  of  a  grand  opportunity. 

The  feelings  of  the  Coptic  clergy  were  beyond  expres- 
sion. It  was  as  though  a  bull,  infuriated  by  the 
proverbial  red  rag  and  thinking  to  gore  it  to  his  heart's 
content,  had  found  his  horns  suddenly  buried  in  an 
unexpected  hedge,  while  the  tormenting  object  of  his 
charge  fluttered  invulnerable  on  the  other  side.  To  be 
robbed  of  the  prey  in  the  moment  of  triumph  was  beyond 
endurance,  and  a  delegation  left  for  Cairo  to  threaten  the 
Patriarch  with  desertion  to  the  Catholics  unless  the 
pardon  were  rescinded. 

A  new  charge  was  lodged  accusing  the  enemy  not 
only  of  the  crime  confessed  but  of  a  theft  of  treasure. 
Investigations  were  reopened  by  Sharif  Pasha  while  the 
Khedive  was  absent  in  Europe,  and  the  subsequent  pro- 
ceedings were  a  complicated  tangle  of  wrongs.  So  far 
as  the  missionary  was  concerned,  the  turn  events  had 
taken  involved  his  remaining  in  Assiut  through  the  hot 
months  of  summer  to  encourage  his  distressed  flock  and 
share  their  anxieties.  His  health  was  not  at  its  best 
and  the  heat  intense.  He  mentions  the  thermometer  at 
112°  in  the  coolest  room,  his  closed  study,  and  121°  else- 
where, the  glass  of  a  shuttered  window  having  been 
left  open.  His  family  being  in  Ramleh,  he  was  quite 
alone,  and  his  wife's  letters  were  feverishly  devoured— 
read  three  times  at  a  sitting,  to  be  studied  again  later 
in  the  vain  hope  that  he  had  not  yet  fully  mastered  their 
contents!  The  case  entailed  on  him  much  writing,  and 
the  slow  wavering  course  of  events  with  the  varying 


168  LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

currents  of  popular  feeling  awakened  can  be  gleaned 
from  a  mass  of  letters,  English  and  Arabic,  public  and 
private,  that  were  the  fruit  of  his  solitude.  Reviewing 
the  case  long  before  its  completion,  he  points  out  eight 
important  contradictions  that  had  already  been  perpe- 
trated, and  remarks  "  Sharif  Pasha's  actions  have  been 
consistent  in  being  a  tissue  of  inconsistencies  from  be- 
ginning to  end."  Nothing  new  was  proved  against  the 
accused,  yet  they  received  sentences  of  one,  two,  and 
three  years'  imprisonment  in  the  South,  and  were  fined 
$1,750  to  replace  property  of  whose  theft  no  evidence 
was  produced  and  pictures  which  were  valued  by  inter- 
ested parties  at  ten  times  their  worth.  The  Governor 
absented  himself  from  the  town  in  disgust,  that  the  in- 
fliction of  the  sentence  might  fall  to  other  hands. 

Mr.  Hogg,  curious  to  see  the  expression  of  the  Coptic 
representatives  as  they  received  their  unlawful  gains, 
accompanied  the  victims  to  the  Mudiriyah  when  payment 
was  to  be  made,  but  finding  his  presence  a  trial  to  the 
official  in  charge,  he  withdrew,  and,  unable  to  rest, 
wandered  to  the  river  where  a  boat  for  Esna  awaited 
the  prisoners.  The  Consuls  had  long  since  taken  up 
the  case,  whose  character  had  changed  to  that  of  definite 
religious  persecution,  and  he  was  haunted  by  an  expecta- 
tion of  reprieve,  a  cheering  legacy  from  his  prayers  of 
the  previous  day  in  the  prison  and  in  secret.  Driven 
home  at  last  by  the  intolerable  heat,  he  found  a  letter 
awaiting  him  with  important  news.  A  promise  had  been 
extracted  from  Sharif  Pasha  that  on  the  return  of  the 
Khedive  the  prisoners  would  be  released.  He  hurried 
out  with  the  glad  tidings,  and  though  the  execution  of 
the  sentence  was  not  deferred,  the  prisoners  left  with 
a  bright  hope  in  their  hearts,  and  their  friends  no  longer 
sorrowed  as  if  for  the  dead. 


RELEASE  OF  THE  ICONOCLASTS   169 

Some  weeks  later  the  Khedive  arrived  from  Europe, 
and  on  August  lo,  after  a  month's  hard  labour  at  Esna 
following  on  a  longer  though  less  rigorous  imprisonment 
at  Assiut,  the  exiled  men  were  finally  set  free.  Great 
rejoicings  awaited  them  in  Assiut,  over  a  thousand  Copts 
and  Moslems  visiting  the  chief  culprit  on  the  day  of  his 
return.  Their  long  trial  had  not  been  wholly  in  vain. 
Protestants  had  gained  from  it  a  firmer  grip  on  the  great 
realities  of  their  faith.  Interest  had  been  quickened 
among  the  Copts,  and  throughout  the  length  of  Egypt 
Moslems  had  learnt  that  Scriptural  Christianity  is  a  purer 
faith  than  they  had  yet  imagined. 

When  after  a  short  rest  Mr.  Hogg  resumed  his  work, 
it  was  with  a  feeling  that  it  was  about  to  enter  on  a  new 
stage  of  its  history,  and  his  large  expectations  were  soon 
justified.  The  events  that  now  emerge  on  the  canvas 
were  peculiarly  significant  to  a  man  who  so  stead- 
fastly refused  to  gauge  success  by  the  number  of  con- 
verts won,  and  considered  his  mission  unfulfilled  till 
the  converts  should  become  such  a  converting  force 
in  the  land  as  must  finally  render  a  foreign  mission  un- 
necessary. 

It  was  in  November  that  the  little  seminary  came 
forth  purified  from  the  smelting  pot  of  financial  disputa- 
tion, and  the  first  coins  of  its  mintage  were  issued  four 
months  later,  two  students  who  had  completed  their 
course  being  licensed  as  preachers  after  an  exhaustive 
examination  by  Presbytery. 

On  February  12,  1870,  a  custom  that  had  held  sway 
for  1,800  years  succumbed  before  the  zeal  of  the  church 
members,  prompted  and  guided  by  the  missionary. 
Copts  and  Moslems,  yielding  to  their  suasion,  signed  with 
them  a  petition  which  transferred  from  Sunday  to  Sat- 
urday the  Assiut  weekly  market,  the  centre  of  all  trade 


170  LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

for  a  wide  and  populous  district,  a  change  which  left  on 
the  mind  of  the  peasantry  a  bewildering  impression  that 
these  holders  of  strange  doctrines  had  juggled  with  the 
calendar  and  transposed  the  order  of  its  days ! 

March  6  saw  the  dedication  of  Assiut  church  building, 
the  fruit  of  unaided  native  effort,  a  memorable  and 
joyous  occasion  to  missionaries  and  people,  when  six  of 
the  former  (Presbytery  being  in  session)  shared  in  the 
ceremonies  of  the  day. 

Equally  significant  of  the  solidity  of  the  success 
achieved  was  the  altered  life  upon  which  the  church 
entered  in  its  new  home.  On  April  ii  the  congregation 
was  formally  organised  and  its  oversight  entrusted  to 
the  elders  and  deacons  of  its  choice. 

In  November  the  church  at  Assiut,  and  a  nucleus  of 
worshippers  at  Motiah  and  at  Nakheilah,  adopted  the 
principles  of  systematic  giving  and  systematic  personal 
aggressive  work,  and  though  these  steps  were  taken  at 
Mr.  Hogg's  suggestion  they  were  taken  with  a  hearty 
ardour  that  boded  well  for  Egypt's  future.  The  imme- 
diate result  was  that  in  ten  weeks  105  visits  were  paid  to 
19  towns  and  villages,  at  distances  of  three  to  twenty 
miles  from  Assiut.  The  work  was  thoroughly  organised, 
the  volunteers  going  two  by  two  every  Sabbath  after- 
noon to  the  towns  appointed  them,  and  reporting  their 
adventures  at  a  mid-week  meeting  held  at  the  home- 
base.  The  missionary  organised  a  flourishing  Sabbath 
school  at  each  of  the  three  centres,  and  members  unable 
for  work  at  a  distance  were  enrolled  as  teachers,  or  as 
workers  in  the  lanes  and  market-place  of  their  own 
town.  Missionaries  and  theologues,  already  old  at  such 
systematic  labour,  enrolled  themselves  along  with  the 
fresh  recruits,  and  the  more  distant  villages  were  usually 
Mr.  Hogg's  allotment  as  he  was  at  this  time  the  happy 


THE  CHURCH  AT  ASSIUT  171 

possessor  of  a  horse  that  carried  him  swiftly  over  the 
ground. 

On  New  Year's  Day,  1871,  a  union  meeting  was  held 
in  the  new  church  at  Assiut,  at  which  the  year's  work  was 
reviewed.  The  missionary  wrote  of  the  day  as  the  hap- 
piest he  had  yet  spent  in  Egypt.  The  speeches  by  elders 
and  deacons  and  their  cheering  reports  of  native  effort 
were  to  him,  like  Gideon's  fleece,  a  sign  of  God's  pres- 
ence, a  proof  to  Egypt  of  a  decree  of  God  that  through 
the  faith  and  valour  of  Egyptians  He  would  deliver  the 
land. 

The  very  letter,  however,  that  describes  this  happy 
occasion  breaks  off  in  its  account  of  encouraging  audi- 
ences and  great  success  to  confess  that  there  remained, 
notwithstanding  a  dark  side  to  the  picture. 

"  In  Assiut  the  people  outside  have  got  the  length  of 
granting  that  Protestantism  is  the  truth,  and  have  made 
up  their  minds  to  trouble  their  heads  no  further  about 
it.  They  will  not  come  to  Christ  that  they  may  have 
life,  and  they  will  not  come  in  the  way  of  getting  it. 
I  firmly  believe  that  it  is  by  preaching  that  men  are 
converted.  Mere  intellectual  enlightenment  from  read- 
ing and  discussing  hardens  the  heart.  Very  few  new 
faces  appear  at  any  of  our  services.  There  are  a  few, 
but  oh,  how  few  in  comparison  with  the  great  mass 
outside ! 

"  Again,  some  of  the  villages  seem  det^mined  to  pre- 
vent our  getting  a  foothold  in  them,  i^utij  is  all  in 
commotion  because  we  (Tadrus,  Tanassa,  and  I)  have 
begun  to  visit  it.  The  Bishop  tried  to  get  a  hold  of 
Tanassa.  The  miller  at  whose  door  he  sat  was  dragged 
off,  beaten,  and  put  in  durance  by  the  Bishop's  orders. 
Tadrus  was  ordered  out  of  Nasr  Allah's  house  and 
refused  to  budge.  I  was  first  shunned ;  and  then,  when 
a  few  came  and  demanded  of  me  to  work  a  miracle  to 
prove  that  our  faith  was  better  than  theirs,  we  were 
interrupted  by  the  Bishop's  Wakil,  who  asked  if  there 


172  LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

was  an  Orthodox  King  present  to  decide  the  controversy, 
and  then  spanked  them  all  off.  Still  there  are  a  few 
timid  spirits  anxious  to  learn  the  truth  and  we  have 
not  lost  hope.  Abnub  is  dead  and  rotten  as  Sodom. 
Twice  I  have  been  there  and  I  was  virtually  told  at  my 
last  visit  that  I  bored  them  by  my  visit.  I  came  home 
on  my  hungry  donkey  (it  had  got  nothing  during  the 
night)  and  broke  my  fast  after  Bessie  and  the  bairns 
had  risen  from  dinner.  The  owner  of  the  house  at 
which  I  had  put  up  (the  leader  of  the  enlightened  set!) 
drank  arrack  and  went  asleep  while  I  preached  the  first 
night,  and  went  off  early  next  morning  without  bidding 
us  good-bye.  Other  places  are  more  hopeful,  but  we 
sadly  need  men,  not  boys.  Tanassa  is  welcome  every- 
where. So  is  Abuna  Hanna  and  Shenoodeh.  I  made 
my  first  visit  to  Bakur  yesterday,  and  the  person  most 
anxious  for  me  to  visit  it  pretended  not  to  be  at  home,  so 
that  I  had  to  leave  it  as  I  had  come,  from  the  fear  that 
every  man  has  of  receiving  me  into  his  house." 

How  little  such  treatment  daunted  him  is  evident  from 
the  resolve  immediately  following.  "  If  spared  I  shall 
take  a  tent  at  the  end  of  the  session  and  spend  a  week 
at  each  of  the  more  important  places."  And  the  project 
was  on  the  eve  of  accomplishment  when  events  taking 
an  unexpected  turn  nipped  it  in  the  bud. 

Only  ten  strenuous  days  remained  available,  but  in 
these  a  hopeful  opening  was  at  last  achieved  at  Bakur, 
while  the  Sabbath  at  Nakheilah  proved  memorable.  In 
the  morning,  Communion  was  conducted  in  the  presence 
of  about  250  men  and  120  women  (with  their  babies!) 
30  new  members  being  received  into  the  Church.  In  the 
afternoon,  in  the  presence  of  fewer  women  but  more 
men,  the  congregation  was  organised  under  the  over- 
sight of  five  elders  and  three  deacons  of  its  own  choice, 
the  elders  being  ordained  not  by  a  band  of  missionaries 
but  by  the  native  session  of  Assiut.     In  the  evening  a 


THE  CHURCH  AT  NAKHEILAH         173 

meeting  was  held  at  which  the  brave  Httle  church  decided 
to  present  a  call  to  Mr.  Tadrus  Yusuf,  who  was  ordained 
to  its  pastorate  a  few  months  later,  to  subscribe  $io 
monthly  towards  his  salary,  and  to  build  a  church,  school, 
and  parsonage  as  soon  as  a  site  could  be  secured. 

In  that  Sabbath's  doings  there  was  a  dramatic  fitness 
unnoticed  at  the  time,  for  a  long  interval  was  to  elapse 
before  the  missionary  would  again  enter  an  Egyptian 
village.  They  were  a  suitable  finale  to  the  six  years  that 
had  passed  since  Mr.  Hogg  settled  in  Assiut.  The  period 
had  opened  with  but  one  solitary  convert  in  the  whole 
Upper  Country,  his  membership  still  carefully  concealed. 
It  closed  on  a  flourishing  Evangelical  Church,  with  two 
full-fledged  congregations  and  the  nuclei  of  others,  and 
on  an  institution  that  would  ensure  for  it  a  constant 
supply  of  trained  workers,  of  whom  Nakheilah's  pastor- 
elect  was  the  first  fruit.  The  building  in  which  the  insti- 
tution was  to  be  housed  was  the  gift  of  Scotland,  and  its 
rough  walls,  rising  daily  higher,  would  soon  need  but 
a  roof  to  complete  its  structure.  Beside  it  stood  the 
house  of  worship,  which  had  been  dedicated  the  previous 
year,  and  whose  donors  were  natives  of  the  land.  The 
latter  building  was  complete,  but  the  Egyptian  Church,  of 
whose  firm  establishment  at  the  centre  of  the  people's 
life  it  was  the  proof  and  symbol,  still  lacked  the  copestone 
that  was  to  perfect  its  Presbyterial  form. 

In  a  few  months  even  this  finishing  touch  was  given. 
Presbytery  had  hitherto  been  a  foreign  body,  its  lan- 
guage English,  its  business  in  large  part  subject  to  the 
approval  or  disapproval  of  an  American  Board.  In  the 
fall  of  the  year  it  became  a  native  body,  its  language 
Arabic,  its  decisions  within  its  own  sphere  final.  At 
the  request  of  the  governing  bodies  in  America  and  with 
the  approval  of  those  concerned,  its  business  was  purged 


174.  LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

of  all  that  related  to  missionaries  as  the  Board's  agents, 
and  to  departments  of  work  whose  financial  responsi- 
bilities rested  entirely  on  the  American  Church. 

Freed  from  this  incubus  of  extraneous  matter,  the 
Presbytery  became  henceforth  a  thoroughly  Egyptian  in- 
stitution, in  which  pastors,  elders,  and  missionaries  met 
as  co-presbyters,  with  equal  privileges,  to  consider  and 
legislate  in  the  Church's  interest,  and  unite  their  varying 
talents  to  aid  her  in  obeying  her  call  from  God  to  the 
spiritual  conquest  of  Egypt. 

This  finishing  touch  gave  greater  joy  to  none  than  to 
Mr.  Hogg,  but  when  the  Presbytery  thus  constituted  held 
its  first  meeting  and  ordained  its  first  pastor,  the  man 
was  far  away  who  had  under  God  played  so  prominent  a 
part  in  the  birth  and  development  of  the  Church  for 
which  it  existed. 


XII 

FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM 

Rejoice  that  man  is  hurled 

From  change  to  change  unceasingly. 

His  soul's  wings  never  furled. 

— Robert  Browning. 

TO  balance  fairly  the  conflicting  claims  of  public 
work  and  private  life  is  as  puzzling  a  problem 
to  the  narrator  of  this  history  as  it  ever  remained 
to  the  man  with  whom  it  is  chiefly  concerned.  In  the  eflfort 
to  give  distinctness  to  the  steps  by  which  Mr.  Hogg's  work 
attained  the  solidity  and  the  permanence  at  which  he 
aimed,  some  events  have  been  ignored  that  afifected  him 
deeply. 

The  happiness  of  his  home  had  been  menaced  as  often 
as  the  prosperity  of  the  cause.  Disease  and  death  were 
the  birds  of  prey  whose  shadows  had  disturbed  its  peace. 
He  had  been  hurried  back  from  his  watch  over  the  move- 
ments of  the  plot  at  Kus,  to  watch  over  his  little  son 
through  a  severe  attack  of  confluent  smallpox,  and  when 
the  misery  was  at  its  worst  had  held  him  on  his  lap  for 
nearly  a  week,  snatching  a  few  hours  of  sleep  each  after- 
noon when  he  relinquished  his  charge  perforce  to  the 
mother,  who  had  already  a  new  baby  to  nurse.  Not  long 
after  his  recovery,  the  little  patient  was  seized  again  by 
some  strange  form  of  croup  which  lasted  through  four- 
teen anxious  days.  "  You  can  imagine,"  the  father 
wrote  to  his  brother,  "  the  torture  of  listening  to  every 
breath  all  through  the  night,  not  knowing  but  the  next 

175 


176  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM 

fit  of  coughing  may  choke  him,  yet  afraid  to  rouse  him 
by  trying  to  give  him  a  Uttle  medicine  to  reUeve  the  heavy 
breathing,  for  that  would,  you  think,  but  hasten  the 
crisis."  But  the  parents  were  spared  that  final  agony 
and  the  dark  cloud  lifted. 

At  another  time  his  own  health  gave  way,  necessitating 
a  month's  rest  in  Ramleh.  He  had  been  called  in  1868 
to  fill  Dr.  Lansing's  place  in  Cairo  for  five  months  as 
editor  and  preacher,  and  when  no  material  remained  to 
edit,  had  been  tempted  to  create  sufficient  Arabic  copy 
to  keep  his  two  compositors  busy,  besides  correcting  the 
corrections  of  the  proof-corrector — which  was  often  a 
serious  undertaking — and  preaching  four  times  a  week 
by  way  of  "  blowing  off  extra  steam."  The  result  was 
that  in  three  months  160  quarto  pages  were  printed  of 
an  Arabic  Bible  Dictionary  and  Students'  Assistant, 
part  of  the  material  translated,  but  more  than  half 
original,  and  that  at  last  he  was  forced  to  escape  north 
a  broken-down  man,  conscious  that  he  had  sinned  in 
attempting  too  much,  but  his  penitence  still  imperfect  as 
his  excuses  reveal.  "  It  is  difficult,"  he  maintains,  "  to  be 
sober  in  such  a  world  as  this.  They  7inll  not  be  saved 
in  God's  way.  How  then  can  one  be  calm  in  such  cir- 
cumstances ?  "  And  there  follows  a  familiar  note,  the 
key-note  of  his  life.  "  Yet  I  would  rather  suffer  from 
doing  too  much  than  be  a  drone  in  such  a  service." 

During  the  winter  that  followed  the  release  of  the 
prisoners  in  August,  1868,  Mr.  Watson  shared  Mr. 
Hogg's  labours  at  Assiut,  and  the  addition  of  Dr.  John- 
stone, a  medical  missionary,  to  the  staff  brought  added 
relief.  But  even  the  best  physician  could  improve  neither 
the  house  nor  the  cHmate,  and  the  health  of  the  children 
proved  miserable,  dysentery  and  ophthalmia  now  alter- 
nating, now  combining  to  reduce  them  to  a  state  of  piti- 


FAMILY  CARES  177 

ful  weakness.  The  ensuing  spring,  when  Assiut  con- 
gregation had  been  entrusted  to  its  own  elders  and  dea- 
cons, the  parents,  to  save  the  life  of  their  youngest,  left 
hastily  for  Syria.  But  during  the  preliminary  river 
journey,  cerebro-spinal  symptoms  developed,  and  on 
reaching  Cairo  the  little  boy,  whose  short  life  of  eight 
months  had  been  chequered  by  many  ills,  breathed  his 
last  and  was  at  rest.  The  parents  continued  their  jour- 
ney, though  their  dearest  hope  was  thus  quenched,  and 
the  family  remained  five  months  in  a  cooler  climate.  Mr. 
Hogg  himself  returned  two  months  earlier,  having 
preached  ten  times  during  his  absence — in  fact,  when- 
ever opportunity  offered. 

The  two  months  of  entire  solitude  throw  into  strong 
light  the  strength  of  his  family  ties  and  his  keen  enjoy- 
ment of  the  home  life,  whose  full  privileges  he  yet  so 
constantly  denied  himself.  His  imagination  was  always 
busy  with  the  absent  ones ;  their  daily  life  was  pictured, 
every  birthday  remembered,  and  each  date  carefully 
watched,  so  that  when  the  time  for  their  return  ap- 
proached, his  brain  was  occupied  with  futile  planning 
for  their  journey  and  the  packing  and  roping  of  imagi- 
nary trunks  for  his  wife,  before  she  herself  faced  the 
task.  During  these  lonely  months  he  found  a  solace 
in  hard  work  and  a  feeble  harmonium.  The  former, 
however,  proved  a  treacherous  friend  and  betrayed  him 
into  many  indiscretions,  so  that  he  was  already  over- 
strained and  sleep-deserted  when  news  reached  him  that 
ophthalmia  had  attacked  his  children  immediately  on 
their  arrival  at  Ramleh  and  that  the  eye  of  one  was  in 
danger.  A  record  journey  of  forty-eight  hours  brought 
him  at  once  into  their  midst,  but  in  a  condition  of  health 
that  soon  added  a  patient  to  the  family  hospital  over 
which  his  wife  presided. 


178  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM 

In  spite  of  so  bad  a  beginning,  the  health  report  for 
the  session  of  1870  to  1871  records  almost  as  much  ad- 
vance on  the  previous  year  as  the  mission  report  for  the 
same  period ;  and  it  was  not  illness  amongst  his  children 
but  serious  news  from  his  wife's  home  that  at  its  close 
altered  the  missionary's  village  plans,  and  after  the  mem- 
orable Sabbath  at  Nakheilah  hurried  him  to  the  coast. 
Two  weeks  later  he  stood  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer  in 
Alexandria  harbour,  watching  through  the  captain's 
spy-glass  another  steamer  that  was  soon  a  vanishing 
speck  on  the  open  sea,  carrying  beyond  the  reach  of  his 
care  the  lives  he  held  most  dear. 

On  this  occasion  separation  did  not  condemn  him  to 
solitude.  He  lived  in  the  home  of  a  colleague,  and  as 
the  theological  students  had  taken  up  quarters  beside 
them,  his  life  was  at  once  filled  with  work  that  he  loved. 

Yet  the  days  that  followed  the  wrench  were  long  and 
difficult,  and  the  third  week  next  to  intolerable.  The 
vessel  in  which  his  family  sailed  was  expected  to  com- 
plete its  journey  in  a  fortnight,  and  from  the  afternoon 
of  the  Monday  on  which  the  fortnight  ended,  he  allowed 
himself  to  expect  from  his  wife  the  promised  telegram. 
He  began  to  count  time  by  the  arrival  at  intervals  of 
a  train  from  Alexandria,  and  if  at  liberty  would  at  the 
sound  of  its  whistle  steal  out  of  the  house  and  hurry 
towards  the  station  to  meet  alone  a  messenger  who 
never  came.  His  nerves  soon  suffered  from  the  strain, 
and  night  brought  "  dread  fancies  "  that  banished  sleep, 
— of  fire,  illness,  and  children  falling  overboard, — with 
always  the  haunting  memory  of  terrible  hours  in  a  frail 
boat  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay  to  emphasise  the  possibility 
that  might  explain  the  silence. 

When  Thursday,  by  the  arrival  of  a  barren  mail, 
quenched  his  last  hope  of  a  letter  from  Gibraltar,  he  had 


ALONE  AT  ASSIUT  179 

to  leave  the  tea-table  abruptly   to  battle  with   his   dis- 
appointment alone. 

"  This  suspense  is  killing  me,"  he  wrote ;  "  I  half 
wish  I  had  not  spoken  of  sending  a  telegram ;  it  makes 
me  count  the  hours."  [And  then  he  grew  penitent  and 
tried  to  rally  his  hopes.]  "  Perhaps  I  ought  not  to  write 
to  you  when  my  heart  is  so  sore.  I  try  to  cast  my  cares 
on  the  great  Care-bearer,  but  they  will  roll  back.  The 
Lord  grant  that  we  may  still  have  many  years  of  happy 
life  all  together.  How  hard  it  must  be  to  the  heart  of 
the  great  Father  of  all  when  His  children  are  away  from 
Him  and  still  receding  and  in  danger  of  being  separated 
from  Him  for  ever.  This  is  the  lesson  I  have  been 
trying  to  learn  these  past  three  weeks.  Oh,  that  I  may 
remember  it  while  I  live  and  draw  closer  to  my  God !  " 

In  that  closeness  he  was  still  striving  to  find  peace 
when  Saturday's  "  heavy  hours  "  drew  to  an  end.  As 
he  undressed  a  sound  in  the  court  and  the  word 
"  telegram  "  reached  his  ear.  In  three  seconds  he  was 
out  of  doors  deciphering  by  moonlight  the  message. 
"  Arrived  safely.  Rough  passage.  Off  for  Edinburgh." 
That  night  on  a  wakeful  pillow,  he  registered  the  vow 
that  never  again  while  her  husband  lived  would  his  wife 
cross  the  ocean  without  his  company, — and  the  vow  re- 
mained unbroken. 

It  is  difficult  to  decipher  the  letters  that  treasure  this 
little  tale,  as  well  as  many  of  those  that  follow,  partly 
because  Time  has  sought  by  its  kindly  touch  to  guard 
them  from  intrusion,  and  partly  because  the  tears  their 
writer  suppressed  seem  to  have  lodged  in  his  fading  words 
the  power  to  infect  the  eyes  of  a  reader  with  their 
dimness.  They  are  the  letters  of  a  lover,  already  ten 
years  a  husband, — letters  for  which  there  had  been  no 
room  in  the  hurried  weeks  of  his  courtship.     He  was 


180  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM 

wise  enough  to  grasp  the  possibiHties  of  his  new  oppor- 
tunity and  believe  that,  rightly  used,  even  a  year  of 
separation  might  bear  a  harvest  of  good. 

His  messages  to  his  children,  his  messages  to  his  wife 
about  money  matters,  dress,  and  fashion,  and  his  remarks 
on  various  incidents  of  her  home  life,  are  often  full  of 
charm,  betraying  a  large  and  generous  nature  widely  re- 
sponsive in  its  impulses  in  spite  of  the  concentration  of 
its  powers  on  a  work  demanding  the  sacrifice  of  many 
of  the  worthy  interests  of  life. 

But  the  problem  of  the  future  often  clouded  his 
thoughts.  The  experiment  of  rearing  children  in  Assiut 
had  so  far  been  singularly  unsuccessful.  Was  it  his  duty 
to  settle  his  family  permanently  in  a  healthier  climate, 
while  he  remained  at  Assiut  to  face  a  life  in  which  the 
pleasures  of  home  would  come  to  him  only  as  an  occa- 
sional oasis  in  the  desert?  Should  Syria  be  their  home, 
Syria  where  without  impossible  outlay  of  money  or  time 
he  might  join  them  annually  for  a  little  space? 

One  possible  solution  might  have  saved  all  pain.  In 
Syria  he  had  been  approached  on  the  subject  of  appoint- 
ment as  professor  in  Beirut  College.  He  had  answered 
with  prompt  decision,  as  once  before  when  his  own 
Church  in  Scotland  had  invited  him  to  a  different  sphere, 
"  I  would  not  exchange  my  present  station  and  work  for 
anything  out  of  Heaven."  To  decide  otherwise  would 
always  have  been  impossible  to  him ;  yet  now,  as  the  hot 
damp  summer  dragged  on,  with  nerves  weakened  and 
sleep  grown  fitful,  the  earthly  charms  of  such  a  change 
of  sphere  would  dance  before  his  eyes  through  the  night 
hours,  like  the  mirage  which  the  desert  traveller  watches 
with  a  fascinated  brain  but  unvacillating  will. 

His  strength  continued  to  ebb.  He  would  rally  his 
powers  to  meet  the  moment's  call,  to  teach,  to  preach,  to 


FURLOUGH  IN  AMERICA  181 

sing  songs  for  a  company's  entertainment,  or  to  join  the 
students  or  his  colleagues  in  any  game  demanding  skill 
of  hand ;  but  the  excitement  over  he  was  left  "  panting  like 
a  broken  down  horse  for  hours,"  and  when  night  came  lay 
open-eyed  till  morning,  unless  some  drug  brought  him 
relief.  Manifestly  he  was  in  no  condition  to  resume  his 
labours  at  Assiut.  The  mission  readjusted  its  programme, 
and  on  October  i8,  1871,  the  trials  of  separation  were 
ended,  and  the  family  in  Edinburgh,  after  but  ten  days 
of  excited  expectation,  welcomed  the  absent  one  into  their 
midst. 

Bereavement  followed  speedily  in  the  wake  of  joy. 
Whooping-cough  soon  invaded  the  family,  and  a  little 
son,  after  a  long  and  painful  struggle,  was  laid  to  rest  in 
Scottish  soil,  the  parents  grateful  for  the  providence  that 
allowed  them  to  be  together  in  the  time  of  their  sorrow. 

The  missionary's  furlough-rest  was,  like  that  of  1866, 
filled  with  engagements.  Two-thirds  of  his  sermons  and 
addresses,  however,  were  delivered  in  America,  where  he 
went  with  his  wife  in  the  spring  of  1872,  in  response  to  a 
warm  invitation  from  the  Mission  Board.  Many  ties  had 
already  been  forged  between  the  American  United  Pres- 
byterian Church  and  her  Scottish  representative  in  Egypt, 
and  the  degree  of  D.D.  conferred  on  him  in  1869  by 
Westminster  College,  Pa.,  had  proved  that  he  was  already 
a  prominent  figure  in  the  minds  of  her  leaders.  It  was 
a  keen  pleasure  therefore  to  strengthen  by  actual  contact 
the  friendships  that  had  been  formed,  and  to  come  into 
closer  touch  than  was  possible  through  the  public  print 
with  the  rank  and  file  of  a  Church  that  he  was  keenly 
anxious  to  arouse  to  a  full  sense  of  her  opportunities.  At 
the  meeting  of  the  General  Assembly  he  was  ofifered  the 
moderatorship,  but  declined  the  honour.  He  prized  how- 
ever a  chance  afforded  him  of  addressing  the  gathering, 


182  FLOTSAM  AND  JETSAM 

and  carried  through  life  a  memento  of  the  occasion  in  a 
handsome  gold  watch  with  which  he  was  publicly  pre- 
sented. The  ten  weeks  of  his  stay  were  divided  amongst 
fifteen  different  centres  extending  from  New  York  and 
Boston  to  Omaha,  Neb.,  his  sermons  and  addresses  num- 
bering thirty-nine  in  all. 

Of  tangible  benefit  to  Egypt  he  was  at  first  uncon- 
scious, but  seed  was  sown  that  in  time  bore  liberal  fruit 
Some  of  his  new  friends  became  in  after  years,  by  their 
gifts  and  efforts,  co-labourers  in  the  cause  he  loved; 
among  them  Dr.  Joseph  Clokey  of  Springfield,  O.,  who 
when  special  need  arose  rendered  such  valuable  service 
by  eliciting  the  aid  of  wealthy  friends,  that  his  name 
is  linked  with  Assiut  College  and  inscribed  as  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  institution.  The  immediate  harvest  was 
more  personal,  and  the  missionaries  left  America  re- 
freshed and  enriched  by  memories  of  open-hearted  hos- 
pitality, comradeship,  and  kindness,  and  by  novel  ex- 
periences in  the  unfamiliar  environment  and  exhilarating 
atmosphere  of  the  New  World. 

Dr.  Hogg  had  lost  ten  pounds  in  weight,  but  having 
gained  greatly  in  spirits  was  impatient  to  be  once  more  a 
doer  of  the  work  and  not  a  speaker  only,  and  imagining 
himself  thoroughly  recuperated  he  left  Scotland  with  his 
family  in  August  and  set  his  face  once  more  towards 
Assiut.  Their  journey  was  interrupted  for  a  few  days  in 
Palermo,  Sicily,  where  Mrs.  Hogg's  brother  laboured  as  a 
missionary,  and  here  Dr.  Hogg  enjoyed  a  short  preach- 
ing bout  in  Italian,  which  resulted  in  the  formation  of 
a  society  for  evangelistic  work  in  the  town  and  district 
on  the  lines  he  had  followed  so  successfully  in  Egypt. 

At  Assiut  disappointment  awaited  him,  for  he  was 
immediately  laid  low  by  an  attack  of  intermittent  fever, 
which  was  followed  in  weary  succession  by  boils,  heavy 


SEPARATION  183 

catarrh,  and  a  cough,  so  that  1873  was  reached  before  he 
was  able  to  enjoy  his  work  to  the  full. 

The  health  of  the  children,  however,  had  been  thor- 
oughly established  by  their  prolonged  stay  in  Scotland, 
and  circumstances  seemed  to  have  provided  a  happy  solu- 
tion to  the  problem  that  had  been  the  father's  nightmare 
on  the  eve  of  his  furlough.  Their  old  home,  though  ris- 
ing above  its  fellows,  had  been  hemmed  in  by  them  on 
every  side.  They  were  now  in  a  new  house  built  over  the 
church  outside  the  western  gate  of  the  town,  and  over- 
looking a  grove  of  palms,  shittim,  olive,  and  pomegranate 
trees.  Here  the  air  came  unpolluted  across  the  fields  from 
the  desert,  and  to  rear  children  might  thus  prove  a  more 
hopeful  task.  Moreover,  Mrs.  Hogg's  sister  had  become 
a  member  of  the  household,  and  could  take  charge  of 
themi  in  Ramleh  or  Syria,  if  wisdom  should  dictate  a 
change. 

But  wisdom's  dictum  soon  proved  other  than  was  ex- 
pected. A  violent  attack  of  ophthalmia  early  in  April 
left  the  eyes  of  the  oldest  son  in  such  a  condition  that 
the  doctor  ordered  six  or  seven  years  in  Scotland  as  the 
only  safeguard  against  blindness,  and  a  long  separation 
ensued.  The  home  in  Egypt  was  left  with  a  baby  three 
months  old  to  act  as  comforter,  while  a  new  home  was 
established  in  a  country  town  in  Scotland,  where  the  three 
older  children  could  secure  a  good  education  at  a  large 
Academy,  amid  the  most  healthful  surroundings  and 
with  an  aunt  to  act  the  mother's  part  to  her  charge. 
Henceforth  re-union  became  the  family  day-dream,  real- 
ised at  long  intervals  and  treasured  always  in  memory 
and  in  hope. 


XIII 

WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

Let  a  man  contend  to  the  uttermost 
For  his  life's  set  prize,  be  it  what  it  will. 

The  thing  wanted,  soon  or  late,  will  be  supplied. 

— Robert  Browning. 

F  one  thing  I  am  certain,  the  College  shall  be 
built  if  the  Lord  prolong  my  life  another  ten 
years,  though  the  straw  for  the  bricks  may 
have  to  be  gathered  one  by  one  from  the  furrows  of  the 
field."     December,  1873. 

In  this  sentence  penned  by  Dr.  Hogg  with  deep  feel- 
ing eighteen  months  after  his  return  from  furlough  we 
find  the  key-note  of  a  new  period,  during  which  the  in- 
adequacy of  the  Academy's  new  building,  the  inadequacy 
of  its  teaching  staff,  and  the  inadequacy  of  the  mission 
force  in  the  Upper  Country,  pressed  on  his  heart  with 
unceasing  and  painful  force  as  he  sought  to  cope  with 
the  bewildering  claims  to  which  growing  success  gave 
birth. 

To  this  period  the  work  of  1872-73  is  but  as  the  tuning 
up  of  an  orchestra.  In  Dr.  Hogg's  absence  the  instru- 
ments had  lost  tone.  By  no  deft  rearrangement  of  forces 
can  a  body  of  missionaries  too  small  for  its  tasks  supply  a 
temporary  vacancy  in  such  a  way  that  no  loss  shall  accrue 
to  the  work.  In  Dr.  Hogg's  absence  the  church  at 
Assiut  had  changed  hands  four  times,  and  being  left  fin- 
ally to  its   own  resources,   dissensions  had   sprung  up 

184 


REVISING  THE  CHURCH  185 

among  its  members,  who,  accustomed  to  high-class  fare, 
grew  critical  of  leaders  of  their  own  race  no  more  ad- 
vanced than  themselves.  The  nightly  meeting  had  dwin- 
dled almost  to  nothing,  and  the  volunteers  for  work  in  the 
villages  contented  themselves  with  mild  efforts  nearer 
home,  meeting  to  enjoy  their  own  spiritual  possessions 
rather  than  to  share  them  with  those  who  lacked. 

Mutual  reconciliations,  a  nourishing  but  limited  diet, 
and  abundance  of  exercise  were  the  remedies  used  to  re- 
vive the  languishing  church.  Six  meetings  were  started 
in  different  districts  of  the  city  and  held  four  nights 
weekly,  with  three  members  in  charge  of  each.  Sabbath 
school  was  put  entirely  under  native  superintendence  and 
well  stocked  with  teachers  willing  to  learn  their  business. 
One  night  all  met  at  the  church  to  pray  for  success,  and 
one  night  only  for  their  own  improvement.  Dr.  John- 
stone, the  medical  missionary,  undertook  to  visit  the  vari- 
ous meetings  to  encourage  those  in  charge,  while  Dr. 
Hogg's  part  was  to  drill  the  speakers  and  Sabbath  school 
teachers,  planning  their  subjects  and  supplying  them  with 
helps  and  hints  which,  copied  by  schoolboys  and  dis- 
tributed week  by  week,  guided  also  the  nightly  meetings 
at  five  of  the  outstations.  At  these  the  work  had  suffered 
less  than  at  the  centre,  and  by  January,  1873,  when  the 
annual  meetings  were  held  at  Assiut,  Motiah,  and  Nak- 
heilah,  church  life  had  everywhere  recovered  tone  and 
gave  abundant  cause  for  thankfulness. 

All  session  the  Academy  building  continued  to  satisfy 
every  demand,  and  as  his  physical  ills  diminished  the 
missionary  enjoyed  increasingly  his  post  as  teacher, 
while  translation  work  went  on  apace.  The  strain,  how- 
ever, began  when  in  the  summer  of  '73  a  tour  in  the 
"  Ibis  "  revealed  to  him  the  startling  rapidity  with  which 
gospel  truth  was  spreading  in  the  land. 


186  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

The  details  of  his  trip  are  rich  in  interest,  but  our 
present  concern  is  chiefly  to  notice  the  motive  that 
prompted  the  journey  and  the  effect  it  produced  upon 
the  worker.  Rev.  Mr.  Currie,  the  missionary  at  Kus,  had 
long  since  been  called  to  his  reward.  Assiut  remained  the 
one  centre  in  Upper  Egypt  at  which  an  ordained  mis- 
sionary was  permanently  at  work.  To  that  missionary 
during  the  regular  working  months  all  regions  were 
unreachable  that  were  beyond  the  range  of  his  horse's 
power,  and  even  at  the  nearest  no  lengthened  stay  was 
possible. 

For  the  unreachable  field  he  and  his  colleagues  were 
preparing  a  native  ministry,  but  unless  the  field  were 
meanwhile  prepared  to  receive  the  men,  their  usefulness 
would  be  crippled  by  entrance  on  their  life  work  as  paid 
agents  of  a  foreign  body,  instead  of  as  pastors  called  to 
their  posts  by  the  people  among  whom  they  were  to 
minister.  Such  a  false  beginning  must  at  all  costs  be 
avoided.  Evangelistic  work  must  keep  pace  with  educa- 
tional, the  preparing  of  the  field  with  the  preparing  of 
the  workers.  It  was  this  necessity  that  forced  Dr.  Hogg 
to  betake  himself  to  the  river  where  the  heat  was  most 
acute  at  a  time  when  common  prudence  turns  the  faces  of 
even  the  most  earnest  workers  seaward. 

To  his  surprise  and  joy  he  found  everywhere  a  marvel- 
lous state  of  readiness. 

At  Mellawi,  a  town  where  drunkenness  and  Christianity 
had  been  synonymous  until  Protestantism  appeared,  a 
series  of  six  sermons  all  converging  on  the  theme  of 
"  The  glorious  salvation  available  through  the  sinner's 
Saviour  "  made  a  deep  impression.  Two  lay  leaders  of 
the  Copts  joined  the  Evangelicals.  On  leaving,  the  mis- 
sionary was  accompanied  to  the  ferry  by  weeping  friends, 
and  the  first  news  to  follow  him  was  that  the  school  whose 


THE  WHITENING  FIELD  187 

formation  he  had  urged  was  fairly  launched,  twelve  boys 
in  attendance,  and  all  expenses  met  by  the  founders. 

At  Luxor  every  hour  of  his  stay  was  eagerly  utilised 
by  a  hungry  people,  and  no  time  wasted  in  empty  talk. 
The  very  Bishop  was  friendly,  and  priests  drank  in  his 
words  like  children.  Men  of  influence  were  the  most 
earnest  inquirers.    Never  had  he  seen  a  wider  door. 

At  Kus  the  cause  was  languishing  because  since  Mr. 
Currie's  death  the  only  preachers  available  had  been  in- 
ferior in  mental  power  and  Scriptural  knowledge  to  the 
leading  church  member,  who,  growing  callous,  hindered 
rather  than  helped  his  brethren.  Yet  even  here  there  was 
a  response  which  seemed  to  prove  that  with  the  right 
gardener  fruit  would  be  abundant,  and  experience  at  every 
town  deepened  the  assurance. 

The  presence  with  Dr.  Hogg  of  Mr.  Shenoodeh  Hanna, 
one  of  the  ablest  of  his  students,  had  an  extraordinary 
effect  on  the  younger  generation.  To  hear  him  sing,  pray, 
and  preach,  and  to  watch  his  ready  adaptation  to  the  call 
of  the  moment,  was  to  them  a  revelation.  Here  was  a 
new  type  of  Egyptian  manhood.  If  possible  to  him,  why 
not  to  them?  The  distant  Academy  acquired  suddenly  a 
concrete  value  and  "  the  ministry  "  a  meaning  remote 
from  that  of  priesthood.  The  "  Ibis  "  in  consequence 
bore  to  Assiut  a  cargo  of  eager  boys  of  Protestant  par- 
entage, and  the  missionary  a  cargo  of  convictions  which, 
seething  in  his  mind,  were  to  rob  him  of  power  to  rest  for 
several  years. 

These  convictions  were  three  in  number, — that  the  de- 
mand for  native  workers  would  soon  be  far  in  excess  of 
what  the  Academy  and  seminary,  unless  immediately  en- 
larged, could  produce ;  that  the  sons  of  Protestants  would 
answer  to  the  call  for  workers  in  the  number  needed  if  aid 
wisely  regulated  were  procurable ;  and  that  for  their  devel- 


188  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

opment  into  the  type  of  worker  required  a  more  thorough 
course  of  training  must  be  provided  than  was  at  present 
possible.  In  a  word  there  was  wanted  a  Training  Col- 
lege for  the  Protestant  Church  into  which  even  the  poor- 
est, if  of  the  stamp  desired,  might  find  entrance ;  and  to 
procure  that  college  speedily  the  only  thing  necessary  was 
to  give  to  Assiut  Academy  room  for  natural  development 
by  providing  adequate  permanent  buildings  and  a  more 
competent  teaching  staff. 

But  how  could  this,  the  only  thing  necessary,  be  at- 
tained ?  It  must  remain  unattainable  unless  by  written  ap- 
peals he  could  infect  with  his  convictions  and  enthusiasm 
other  men  in  whom  the  power  to  act  and  to  give  would  ac- 
company desire.  Was  it  to  raise  his  appeals  to  white  heat 
that  he  was  immediately  plunged  into  a  furnace  of  trial 
which  seemed  to  mock  his  efforts  and  his  dreams?  What 
lay  before  him  on  his  return  from  the  south,  and  under 
what  circumstances  he  made  his  first  attempt  to  tell  the 
Church  in  America  what  had  so  affected  his  own  soul,  the 
following  letter,  which  accompanied  his  appeal,  relates : 


Assiut,  26th  September,  1873. 
Dear  Brother  Dales, 

I  shall  add  a  short  note.  It  will  have  to  be  written 
under  difficulties,  as  the  enclosed  has  been,  for  like 
poor  Job  I  am  coated  over  with  an  irritating  eruption 
which  has  deprived  me  of  sleep  for  a  number  of  weeks, 
and  it  is  now  finishing  up  (I  hope)  with  a  crop  of  boils 
which  have  fairly  brought  me  to  my  back  for  the  nonce. 
The  carpet  is  my  couch  and  the  floor  my  writing  desk. 

Our  family  trials  have  been  numerous  since  I  wrote 
you  last.  After  seeing  our  children  aboard  the  steamer 
I  left  for  Upper  Egypt,  leaving  Mrs.  Hogg  and  baby 
at  Ramleh.  On  my  way  north,  after  two  months'  ab- 
sence, news  reached  me  that  baby  was  sick.  I  hurried 
to  Ramleh,  fearing  the  worst  (for  our  last  two  children 


LETTER  TO  DR.  DALES  189 

died  about  his  age).  Mrs.  Lansing  will  have  told  you 
how  anxious  we  were  all  kept  on  his  account  and  how 
often  we  hoped  against  hope.  I  was  anxious  to  get  back 
to  Assiut,  for  the  Academy  was  in  a  regular  mess.  The 
Syrian  teacher  on  whom  I  had  depended  to  carry  it  on 
in  my  absence  had  refused  to  go  back  at  the  end  of  the 
vacation  on  account  of  the  heat,  and  left  our  service 
without  warning.  The  other  teachers  had  got  to  quar- 
relling and  even  to  blows  in  the  school. 

The  second  Syrian  had  been  summarily  dismissed  (for 
the  worst  conduct).  The  coming  of  the  ten  boys  from 
Kus  had  stirred  up  the  boys  in  other  places,  and  the 
Academy  was  being  crowded  with  pupils  without  any 
teachers  for  them. 

Such  was  the  news  that  was  reaching  me  every  few 
days  during  the  two  months  to  which  my  stay  in  Ramleh 
was  prolonged.  So  you  may  guess  what  my  thoughts 
were  during  those  dreary  nights  while  I  paced  the  room 
backwards  and  forwards  from  midnight  till  day-dawn 
carrying  the  sick  one  in  my  arms.  He  had  now  cut 
some  teeth  and  the  danger  from  brain-fever  had  passed, 
but  his  little  emaciated  body  was  coated  over  with 
myriads  of  itchy  pimples  and  dozens  of  boils  and  ulcers, 
making  it  impossible  for  him  to  sleep  except  when  car- 
ried about  in  the  arms.  All  the  young  ladies  took  turns 
with  us  in  nursing  the  little  sufferer.  But  for  their  help 
we  should  both  have  broken  down  altogether.  At  last 
the  doctor  gave  us  permission  to  leave,  expressing  the 
hope  that  the  change  from  the  seashore  to  Assiut  might 
do  him  good.  Baby  is  thinner  than  when  we  left,  but 
his  face  is  more  natural-looking  and  he  is  a  little  more 
lively.  The  eruption  seems  almost  to  disappear  and  then 
it  breaks  out  afresh,  and  every  few  days  I  have  to  open 
two  or  three  large  boils  on  his  head  and  shoulders,  etc. 
To  finish  up  this  doleful  chapter,  I  got  so  accustomed 
to  wakeful  nights  at  Ramleh  that  I  seem  now  to  have 
lost  the  power  of  sleeping  altogether,  and  when  this 
state  will  end  I  cannot  tell.  Meanwhile,  and  until  the 
teacher  whom  we  have  written  for  comes  from  Syria, 
I  have  to  teach  four  hours  daily  in  the  Academy,  as 
well  as  do  all  the  managing,  etc.,  etc. 


190  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

You  will  now  understand  how  it  was  that  being  forced 
to  take  to  my  back  and  yet  still  able  to  use  the  pen, 
when  I  began  to  write  to  you  an  account  of  my  recent 
Nile  tour  a  few  days  ago,  I  got  back  to  the  same  old, 
old  song,  of  which  you  and  I  are  so  sick.  Alas,  we  pipe 
and  they  will  not  dance !  But  shall  we  cease  piping 
on  that  account? 

Yours  ever, 

J.  Hogg. 

The  session  on  which  he  was  now  entering  proved  per- 
haps the  most  trying  in  his  whole  history.  The  pressure 
of  things  neglected  was  incessant,  and  he  was  ever  con- 
scious of  opportunities  lost,  of  whitening  grain  for  which 
no  reapers  were  in  readiness,  and  of  work  done  in  me- 
diocre fashion  which  properly  circumstanced  he  had  the 
power  to  do  well.  This  pressure  combined  with  his  weak- 
ened physical  condition  to  drive  him  at  times  to  the  verge 
of  desperation.  Boils  followed  persistently  in  each  other's 
train,  each  seeming  to  choose  the  worst  spot  possible,  and 
when  he  noted  the  cheering  sign  that  they  no  longer 
caused  him  to  fever,  his  optimism  was  at  once  laid  low 
by  a  week's  prostration  and  torture.  At  last  a  fall  of 
temperature  to  normal  allowed  him  to  force  himself 
"  into  the  old  rut  again,"  but  it  was  with  a  large  boil 
on  the  very  centre  of  his  spine,  so  painfully  situated  that 
he  regretted  his  lack  of  gratitude  to  its  predecessors  for 
locating  themselves  elsewhere ! 

Yet  in  his  work  there  is  no  "  rut  "  visible.  As  soon  as 
he  touched  the  evening  meeting  he  rejuvenated  it,  the 
whole  programme  altered.  He  arranged  substitutes  at  all 
the  stations  where  theologues  had  been  engaged,  that  their 
work  might  proceed  after  some  fashion  while  they  re- 
turned to  Assiut  for  further  study.  He  answered  Arabic 
letters  that  poured  in  from  every  quarter.  He  wrote 
petitions  to  Government  for  permission  to  build  churches 


APPEAL  TO  THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH     191 

on  sites  purchased  by  the  people  of  different  villages ;  a 
petition  for  a  change  in  the  market-day  at  Mellawi  where 
the  native  pleaders  had  failed  to  word  their  plea  with 
sufficient  persuasiveness ;  repeated  letters  long  and  patient 
to  a  back-sliding  member  who  would  not  forgive  him  be- 
cause he  had  spoken  the  truth  in  love ;  and  hardest  of  all 
regretful  explanations  in  answer  to  urgent  requests  for 
an  Egyptian  preacher  or  a  visit  from  himself,  which  came 
in  with  weekly  monotony  from  Luxor,  Kosair,  Kurnah, 
Kena,  Girga,  Ekhmim,  Tahta,  Minya,  and  elsewhere. 

Can  we  wonder  that  into  an  appeal  to  the  American 
Church  from  one  so  burdened  and  so  afflicted  there  crept 
a  tone  that  has  in  it  more  of  the  ring  of  human  nature 
than  of  angelic  patience,  and  is  more  suggestive  of  a 
man  of  battle  than  of  a  saint  and  martyr? 

The  Christian  Instructor  suppressed  the  appeal  after 
printing  the  five  descriptive  articles  by  which  the  pleader 
had  striven  to  prepare  his  reader  for  a  climax  of  action. 
A  portion  of  this  plea  we  print  below,  unpurged  of  the 
odour  of  gunpowder  that  seems  to  have  rendered  it 
obnoxious. 


"  It  is  the  vaunting  boast  of  our  Church  that  she 
is  raising  a  native  ministry  in  Egypt,  and  it  is  full  time 
that  the  Church  were  informed  that  all  she  is  doing  in 
the  premises  is  to  kill  her  own  missionaries,  or  at  least 
to  put  them  in  such  circumstances  that  they  cannot  help 
killing  themselves.  She  boasts  of  her  Assiut  Training 
Academy.  Her  Academy,  forsooth !  and  what,  pray,  has 
she  ever  done  for  it?  We  answer  that  as  a  Church  she 
has  done  nothing  for  it  whatever.  She  has  supported 
the  missionary  who  has  charge  of  it,  it  is  true,  but  she 
has  not  relieved  him  of  one  single  solitary  item  of  his 
other  work.  He  has  even  the  bookshop  and  colportage 
accounts — a  work  which  every  one  who  has  had  charge 
of  it  knows  to  be  no  sinecure. 


19^  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

"  The  Assiut  Training  Academy  has  cost  the  Qiurch 
no  more  than  it  would  have  done  had  it  been  an  ordinary 
mission  school.  Even  the  building  never  cost  it  a  cent. 
The  venerated  pastor  of  St.  Clairsville,  Ohio,  gathered 
nearly  $1,200  from  a  few  individual  congregations  and 
Sabbath  schools  to  furnish  the  Academy  with  suitable 
teaching  apparatus,  and  a  devoted  friend  of  missions 
in  Monmouth  gave  a  noble  donation  to  establish  a  fund 
for  supporting  a  few  poor  but  deserving  students  during 
their  curriculum  of  study ;  but,  we  repeat  it,  the  United 
Presbyterian  Church,  as  a  Church,  has  done  no  more 
for  Upper  Egypt  with  its  Training  Academy  than  it 
would  have  done  for  it  had  the  Academy  never  been 
established. 

"  Assiut  Academy  will  expand  into  a  college  in  a  very 
few  years.  Colleges  grow;  they  are  not  made.  We  also 
maintain  that  a  missionary  college  (i.e.,  a  college  for 
training  pastors,  teachers,  and  evangelists)  ought  to 
draw  its  students  chiefly  from  the  families  of  native  con- 
verts. Four  congregations  have  sent  eighty  pupils,  and 
other  congregations  are  springing  up  as  fast  as  we  can 
plant  them.  If  four  congregations  give  eighty  pupils, 
how  many  will  eight,  twelve,  twenty,  etc.,  give?  Instead 
of  imposing  the  care  of  such  an  institution  as  an  addi- 
tional burden  to  all  the  other  work  of  a  missionary,  lei 
not  fewer  than  three  of  our  number  be  set  apart  for  this 
special  work ;  and  let  new  buildings  be  erected  as  the 
number  of  students  increases,  and  by  the  blessing  of 
God  on  our  effort  we  shall  not  only  have  a  flourishing 
Training  College  in  efficient  operation  large  enough  to 
supply  pastors,  evangelists,  and  teachers  for  our  whole 
mission-field,  but  by  leading  the  students  out  into  the 
field  during  the  College  vacation,  and  thus  giving  them 
practical  training  in  evangelistic  work,  these  three  mis- 
sionary professors  will  annually  perform  more  bona  fide 
missionary  work  than  they  could  have  performed  by 
their  unaided  individual  efforts,  though  constantly  en- 
gaged in  evangelistic  work  throughout  the  whole  of  the 
year. 

"  Whether  this  arrangement  or  something  like  it  be 
made  before  next  session,  or  whether  it  be  postponed  un- 


APPEAL  TO  THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH     193 

til  its  proposer  has  been  crushed  down  into  a  premature 
grave,  one  thing  must  be  done  without  any  such  delay — 
unless  it  be  the  desire  of  the  Church  that  the  child  be 
buried  also  in  its  father's  grave.  Not  only  must  the  present 
building  be  enlarged  in  order  that  the  Academy  may 
expand  into  a  College,  but  it  must  be  enlarged  or  it  will 
cease  to  exist;  for  it  must  have  room  to  grow,  even  as  an 
Academy,  or  else  it  will  dwarf  and  dwindle  into  a  local 
common  school.  The  question  to  be  decided  is  not 
'  Shall  we  build  or  shall  we  not  ? '  but  '  Shall  we  put 
up  a  shabby  structure  similar  to  that  which  we  have  dig- 
nified by  the  name  of  an  Academy,  or  shall  we  erect 
something  that  will  some  day  form  a  portion  at  least  of 
a  College  building  ? '  Any  man  who  is  competent  to 
work  a  simple  problem  in  the  Rule  of  Three  need  not 
puzzle  his  brains  long  as  to  which  of  these  alternatives 
we  ought  to  choose. 

"  Why  do  you  refuse  a  more  generous  support  and 
thus  oblige  us  to  lose  the  legitimate  results  of  our  la- 
bours? The  weary  work  of  preparation  is  well-nigh 
finished.  The  day  of  small  things  has  nearly  passed 
away.  The  harvest  is  at  hand.  The  fields  are  whitening 
to  the  sickle.  Why  check  our  joy  at  the  very  dawn  of 
the  long-looked-for  day  of  jubilee?  Must  the  fruits  of 
our  labours  be  lost  for  want  of  ingatherers?  Wonder 
not  that  our  hands  are  drooping  and  our  hearts  are  sad. 
Nay,  marvel  not  if,  after  long  weary  months  of  broken 
health  from  overtasking  our  strength  in  the  vain  attempt 
to  save  the  crops,  we  feel  almost  tempted  to  close  our 
appeal  with  a  word  of  warning,  and  say  '  Send  us  the 
help  we  need  or  we  will  leave  the  field!  If  there  is  no 
hope  of  our  raising  the  kind  of  preachers  that  are  wanted, 
we  must  get  out  of  reach  of  this  doleful  wail  of  Mu- 
bashshir,  Muhashshir/^  for  otherwise  it  will  break  our 
heart.'  " 

This  protest  in  altered  form  found  its  way  later  into 
the  Mission's  report  for  the  year.     It  stood  out  as  an 
exception  in  a  life  little  given  to  complaint,  and  its  writer 
*  A  preacher,  a  preacher. 


194  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

was  wont  to  speak  of  it  as  his  "  wail "  or  his  "  appeal 
for  life."  He  had  once  for  all  cried  his  loudest,  he  de- 
clared, and  if  Egypt  gained  nothing  by  his  cry  he  would 
be  forever  still. 

His  trials  were  now  at  their  worst  and  his  nights  tor- 
ture. "  If  this  goes  on  much  longer  I  shall  have  to  quit," 
he  had  remarked  at  the  breakfast-table,  when  an  incident 
occurred  that  proved  his  threats  to  have  been  a  mere 
ripple  on  the  surface,  false  to  the  current  that  controlled 
his  will.  A  letter  reached  him  that  threw  open  a  door 
of  honourable  escape,  and  he  deliberately  chose  to  stick 
to  his  post  and  endure  its  ills. 

A  Young  Ladies'  College  was  to  be  founded  in  Mel- 
bourne, Australia,  by  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  the 
leaders  of  the  movement  desired  as  principal  a  clergy- 
man from  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  Colony.  No  suitable 
candidate  offered  and  a  friend  on  the  spot,  intimate  with 
the  heads  of  the  scheme,  urged  Dr.  Hogg  to  apply  for  the 
position.  Several  of  the  trustees  already  favoured  his 
appointment,  his  friend  assured  him,  and  the  salary  would 
not  likely  fall  short  of  $25,000  a  year.  It  was  a  startling 
letter  to  the  two  most  intimately  concerned,  but  the  wife 
read  duty's  claim  by  some  simple  and  direct  method  that 
left  no  need  for  weighing  evidence.  To  the  husband 
the  glamour  of  the  world  made  more  appeal  and  the  in- 
credible salary  of  $25,000  was  a  real  temptation — the  more 
so  that  the  expense  of  providing  for  a  divided  family  and 
new  regulations  passed  by  the  Board  were  threatening 
him  with  debt.  Australia  was  the  home  of  his  brothers. 
Its  climate  would  secure  physical  relief.  Its  gold  would 
end  his  cares  and  enable  him  to  support  in  Upper  Egypt 
the  two  additional  missionaries  for  whom  he  pleaded 
vainly.  He  seemed  to  see  stretching  alluringly  before  him 
a  congenial  sphere  with  money,  position,  and  friends,  sep- 


AN  OFFER  FROM  AUSTRALIA  195 

aration  at  an  end,  and  his  absent  children  growing  up 
around  him  in  health  and  happiness. 

Drawn  by  a  prospect  so  attractive  he  examined  anew 
what  he  already  possessed  in  order  to  re-estimate  its 
value.  He  had  spent  nine  years  in  Upper  Egypt.  What 
gains  had  the  years  amassed? 

A  Training  Academy  with  loo  pupils ;  six  schools  sup- 
ported by  the  people;  338  converts;  three  congregations 
already  organised  and  four  awaiting  their  opportunity ; 
while  the  income  of  the  past  year  alone  had  been  58 
new  members  added  to  the  Church,  748  Sabbath  services 
and  2,518  night-meetings  at  which  the  Gospel  had  been 
preached,  and  3,100  volumes  of  Scripture  and  religious 
books  bought  by  Egyptian  readers. 

Such  were  the  results  of  nine  years'  effort  in  Upper 
Egypt.  During  these  years  other  missionaries  had  at 
one  time  or  another  laboured  in  the  Upper  Country,  and 
all  had  contributed  to  the  success  of  the  work.  Yet  could 
it  be  doubted  that  the  leading  factor  under  God  had  been 
Assiut's  first  missionary  and  the  workers  that  his  nine 
years'  labours  had  produced  and  in  whose  training  he 
had  had  so  large  a  share? 

What  then  could  weigh  in  the  balance  against  such 
gains  ?  Must  he  not  adopt  the  words  of  Nehemiah,  "  I 
am  doing  a  great  work  so  that  I  cannot  come  down." 
His  decision  was  prompt  and  whole-hearted.  "  It  is  worth 
a  little  self-sacrifice,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend,  "  to  be  able 
under  God  to  set  and  keep  a-going  such  moral  machinery. 
Australian  gold  may  be  precious,  but  it  is  not  so  precious 
as  living  churches  of  living  souls." 

There  is  stimulus  to  the  soul  in  a  temptation  resisted, 
and  the  missionary  needed  all  the  strength  and  cheer 
available,  for  his  appeal  to  America  was  crossed  in  its 
journey  by  letters  that  announced  a  fall  in  the  contribu- 


196  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

tions  of  the  Church,  demanding  a  reduction  of  20  per  cent 
in  the  ordinary  mission  expenditure.  Such  news  sounded 
a  knell  to  the  immediate  fulfilment  of  his  plans  for  con- 
solidating and  extending  the  work,  while  every  week 
brought  fresh  confirmation  to  his  belief  that  by  no  other 
means  yet  devised  could  the  mission  hope  for  the  speedy 
evangelisation  of  Egypt. 

The  work  to  be  done  in  the  land  had  always  appealed 
to  him  as  a  unit.  It  was  as  an  Alexandrian  missionary 
that  he  first  formed  the  conviction  that  the  key  to  the 
situation  then  existing  in  Moslem  Egypt  lay,  not  in  iso- 
lated cases  of  conversion  among  Moslems  in  Alexandria 
or  elsewhere,  but  in  the  regeneration  of  the  Copts,  and 
that  the  South  as  the  Coptic  centre  must  accept  the 
Christ  as  Master  and  King,  before  the  Delta  would  yield 
to  His  claims.  Life  in  Cairo  had  not  shaken  his  belief, 
and  in  working  now  for  a  Training  College  at  Assiut, 
under  three  missionary  professors  whose  whole  powers 
would  be  concentrated  on  training  workers  and  leading 
them  into  the  whitening  fields,  he  considered  himself  to 
be  working  as  much  for  Moslems  as  for  Copts,  as  much 
for  the  future  of  Alexandria  and  Cairo  as  for  his  own 
station.  In  desperation  therefore  at  the  turn  events  had 
taken,  he  dared  to  draft  for  his  colleagues  a  scheme  for 
immediate  action  which  was  calculated  to  lay  him  open  to 
a  charge  of  egotism,  as  exaggerating  the  importance  of 
his  special  corner  of  the  field. 

The  two  papers  which  embody  this  scheme  were  writ- 
ten with  the  haste  that  of  necessity  characterised  all  his 
correspondence,  but  the  opinions  expressed  were  the  out- 
come of  mature  thought  and  were  the  chart  by  which 
from  first  to  last  he  regulated  the  direction  of  his  life's 
energies. 

They  are  as  follows : 


ASSIUT    COLLEGE 
New  Site  and  Buildin.os  durina-  Nile  overflow 


ASSIUT    L()LLE(.1<; 
Johnston  Hall  (dormitory).     Main  Administration  Hall 


PREAMBLE  AND  RESOLUTIONS         197 

AssiUT,  9th  January,  1874. 
To  the  Revd.  Messrs.  Ewing,  Watson,  Harvey,  and 
Strang. 
Dear  Brethren  :  In  view  of  the  opening  fields  in 
Upper  Egypt,  the  signs  of  the  times,  the  twenty  per  cent 
reduction  to  be  made  in  our  estimates,  and  the  unan- 
swered calls  for  reinforcement,  I  have  concluded  to  ask 
the  Association  to  give  its  vote  on  the  following  pre- 
amble and  resolutions  at  the  approaching  meeting.  If 
some  of  you  feel  tempted  to  think  me  crazy  you  must 
at  least  acknowledge  that  it  is  a  disease  of  long  standing, 
for  I  have  merely  put  on  paper  the  substance  of  what 
I  have  been  drumming  in  the  ears  of  the  Association 
for  the  last  five  or  six  years, 

Yours  truly, 

John  Hogg. 

Copy  of  Preamble  and  Resolutions  to  be  Presented 
TO  THE  Association  at  its  Next  Meeting 

Whereas,  we  believe  that  the  great  ultimate  aim  of 
the  missionary  enterprise  is  not  merely  the  conversion 
of  individual  souls,  nor  the  culture  and  enlightenment 
of  the  body  of  the  people,  but  the  planting  in  their  midst 
of  an  independent,  self-sustaining,  self-propagating, 
Christian  Church  (Matt,  xiii,  33;  /  Thess.  \,  8;  Acts  of 
the  Apostles)  ; 

And  whereas,  all  missionary  effort  that  falls  short 
of  attaining  this  object  must  be  regarded  as  little  better 
than  a  failure  from  a  missionary  point  of  view,  even 
though  it  be  attended  with  a  large  measure  of  success 
in  the  conversion  of  individuals  and  the  diffusing  of 
civilising  influences  among  the  people  at  large ; 

And  whereas,  in  order  to  the  attainment  of  this 
object  converts  must  be  gathered  into  churches,  pastors 
trained  for  and  ordained  over  them,  and  each  congrega- 
tion taught  to  support  its  own  Christian  institutions,  and 
also  to  engage  vigorously  in  the  work  of  home  evan- 
gelisation ; 

And  whereas,  our  missionary  staff  is  too  small  to 
carry  out  this  aim  and  method  at  all  our  present  mission 


198  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

centres,  and  too  much  scattered  to  admit  of  their  being 
carried  out  effectively  at  any  of  them,  and  therefore, 
unless  our  force  is  increased  or  concentrated  we  are 
in  danger  of  failing  to  secure  the  one  object  which  can 
alone  give  our  labours  any  lasting  value  in  a  missionary 
point  of  view ; 

And  whereas,  our  repeated  calls  for  reinforcement 
have  met  with  no  response,  but,  on  the  contrary,  the 
gaps  made  by  death  and  desertion  have  not  yet  been 
filled ; 

And  whereas,  the  attempt  which  has  been  made  to 
carry  out  this  aim  and  method  in  the  Upper  Egypt 
mission  circuit  has  been  crowned  with  success,  and  all 
that  is  now  needed  in  order  to  cover  that  wide  field 
with  self-sustained,  self-propagating  evangelical  churches 
is  that  there  be  stationed  in  Assiut  a  force  sufficient  to 
train  native  teachers  and  preachers  and  lead  them  forth 
into  the  opening  fields; 

And  whereas,  from  the  geographical  position  of 
Alexandria  and  the  foreign  character  of  its  population 
the  mission  there  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  a  close 
organic  connection  with  the  mission  to  Egypt  proper, 
and  its  abandonment  would  not  afifect  the  vital  interests 
of  the  mission  at  large,  while  the  failure  to  strengthen 
the  mission  force  in  Upper  Egypt  (where  the  great  bulk 
of  the  Copts  reside  through  whose  instrumentality  the 
country  is  to  be  evangelised)  will  lead  to  the  defeat 
of  the  very  object  for  which  the  Egyptian  mission  has 
been  established ; 

Therefore  resolved : — 

( 1 )  That  we  declare  it  to  be  our  conviction  that  the 
time  has  come  for  us  to  concentrate  all  our  available 
strength  and  means  in  the  carrying  out  of  what  we 
believe  to  be  the  final  aim  and  true  method  of  the  mis- 
sionary enterprise: 

(2)  That  we  either  hand  over  to  the  native  con- 
gregations or  discontinue  altogether  those  boys'  schools 
which  have  not  for  their  special  aim  the  training  of 
native  evangelists,  pastors,  and  teachers ; 

(3)  That  in  the  event  of  no  reinforcements  being 
sent  us  during  the  current  year  we  shall  feel  it  to  be  our 


PREAMBLE  AND  RESOLUTIONS         199 

duty  to  strengthen  the  mission  in  Upper  Egypt  even 
though  it  may  be  necessary  to  give  up  the  mission  station 
in  Alexandria. 

AssiUT,  2 1st  January,  1874. 
Dear  Brethren, 

As  you  are  to  be  all  together  for  so  many  days  and 
will  thus  be  able  to  mature  your  minds  on  many 
matters  and  thus  facilitate  our  action  upon  them,  I 
have  concluded  to  send  you  another  bone  to  pick  (I 
hope  you  will  not  conclude  to  break  my  head  with  them) 
in  the  shape  of  a  corollary  to  my  last  (you  may  make 
it  a  substitute  if  you  like).    Here  it  is: — 

Whereas,  the  attendance  of  the  Assiut  Academy  has 
increased  fourfold  (25  to  100)  during  the  past  year, 
and  the  present  building  is  not  only  overcrowded  but 
also  30  of  the  boarding  pupils  have  been  obliged  to 
lodge  in  outhouses,  at  great  inconvenience  to  themselves 
and  no  small  injury  to  the  institution; 

And  whereas,  nearly  all  the  pupils  in  the  Academy  are 
sons  of  Protestant  converts,  and  it  is  the  earnest  desire 
and  prayer  of  their  parents  that  they  may  be  trained 
for  future  service  in  the  mission-field ; 

And  whereas,  the  congregations  of  Assiut,  Motiah, 
Nakheilah,  and  Kus  have  sent  an  aggregate  of  eighty 
pupils  to  the  Academy,  and  the  teachers  in  the  congre- 
gational schools  in  these  towns  and  also  in  Bakur  and 
Mellawi  have  resolved  to  make  an  effort  to  have  a  new 
class  ready  to  enter  the  Academy  at  the  beginning  of 
every  session; 

And  whereas,  there  is  every  probability  that  the  new 
congregations  which  are  being  formed  in  Upper  Egypt 
as  fast  as  we  can  plant  them  will  imitate  the  example 
of  their  elder  sisters  in  this  matter  as  in  everything  else, 
and  thus  there  is  every  reason  to  expect  that  the  Prot- 
estant pupils  alone  will  amount  to  several  hundreds 
within  a  very  few  years ; 

And  whereas,  the  success  of  our  missionary  enterprise 
must  be  measured  by  the  success  of  our  efforts  in  plant- 
ing churches  and  supplying  them  with  well-trained  native 
pastors,  evangelists,  and  teachers,  and  in  order  to  attain 


200  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

the  full  legitimate  results  of  these  efforts  it  is  indis- 
pensable that  the  Training  Academy  be  permitted  and 
enabled  to  grow  with  the  Church's  growth,  and  this  not 
merely  in  the  number  of  its  pupils  but  also  in  respect 
of  the  character  and  quality  of  the  education  imparted 
to  them  within  its  walls ; 

And  whereas,  the  Assiut  Training  Academy  has  al- 
ready reached  the  limit  of  its  pupils,  and  a  sum  of  not 
less  than  $25,000  is  required  to  build  a  set  of  dormi- 
tories sufficient  to  accommodate  the  present  boarders  and 
thus  enable  us  to  utilise  the  present  dormitories  as  class- 
rooms, for  which  they  are  greatly  needed ; 

And  whereas,  such  an  addition  to  the  Academy  build- 
ing, though  it  may  be  sufficient  to  meet  the  present  want, 
will  not  relieve  us  of  the  necessity  of  building  again  a 
few  years  hence,  and  it  seems  to  us  a  waste  of  money 
to  invest  it  in  a  building  of  an  inferior  character  that 
will  not  be  of  permanent  use  or  value  for  the  purpose 
for  which  it  was  intended : 

Therefore  resolved : — 

(i)  That  we  are  of  opinion  that  a  building  ought  to 
be  erected  in  or  near  the  city  of  Assiut  large  enough  to 
accommodate  400  pupils,  with  house  accommodation  for 
200  boarders  and  two  mission  families — said  building 
to  be  called  the  Assiut  or  Upper  Egypt  Training  Col- 
lege and  Mission  Seminary ; 

(2)  That  a  Committee  consisting  of  be  ap- 
pointed to  secure  a  suitable  site,  draw  up  plans,  and 
make  a  careful  estimate  of  the  probable  cost  of  the 
building,  said  plans  and  estimate  to  be  submitted  to  the 
Association  and  transmitted  to  the  Board  for  their  final 
sanction  and  approval ; 

(3)  That  the  sum  of  $2,500  be  put  into  the  Estimates 
for  the  current  year  for  the  purchase  of  a  site  and  the 
renting  of  boarding  houses  for  the  scholars  until  the 
building  is  erected ; 

(4)  That  Dr.  Hogg  be  requested  and  authorised  to 
lay  the  claims  of  the  proposed  Training  College  and 
Mission  Seminary  before  the  Christian  public  of  Great 
Britain  and  America  and  report  to  the  Association  from 
time  to  time; 


PREAMBLE  AND  RESOLUTIONS         201 

(5)  That  a  Committee  consisting  of  be  ap- 
pointed to  urge  upon  the  Church  the  absolute  necessity 
of  sending  out  at  once  not  fewer  than  two  ordained 
missionaries  to  take  the  places  of  those  who  shall  be 
transferred  to  the  Assiut  Academy  and  future  Training 
College ; 

(6)  That  the  Rev.  D.  Strang  or  the  Rev.  A.  Watson 
be  transferred  to  Assiut  and  placed  in  charge  of  the 
Academical  and  Collegiate  department  of  the  Institution ; 

(7)  That  the  Rev.  A.  Watson  or  the  Rev.  D.  Strang 
be  transferred  to  Assiut  to  co-operate  with  Dr.  Hogg 
in  conducting  the  Theological  department  and  in  training 
the  students  in  practical  evangelistic  work  during  vaca- 
tion, the  one  in  the  Northern  and  the  other  in  the 
Southern  section  of  the  Upper  Egypt  mission  circuit. 

Hoping  that  you  will  have  favourable  breezes  and 
trusting  that  we  will  be  guided  by  the  Spirit  of  God  in 
all  our  counsels,  I  remain, 

Your  brother  in  Christ, 

John  Hogg. 


We  print  these  documents  in  full  because  such  we  be- 
lieve would  have  been  their  writer's  wish,  and,  considered 
in  their  true  setting,  they  acquire  a  peculiar  and  personal 
interest.  The  ideas  they  express  have  done  much  to  mould 
the  course  of  mission  history  in  Egypt,  and  their  main 
contention  has  become  perhaps  a  common-place  in  an  era 
which  professes  to  treat  missions  as  a  science.  But  in 
1874  the  snatching  of  brands  from  the  burning,  rather 
than  Paul's  labour  of  planting  churches,  was  still  the 
popular  and  almost  universal  view  of  a  missionary's  call- 
ing, and  those  who  held  the  theory  that  the  establishment 
of  a  self-propagating  native  Church  is  the  matter  of 
primal  importance  in  evangelising  a  land  were  as  yet  but 
a  small  minority.  To  this  minority  Dr.  Hogg  belonged, 
and  if  others  in  Egypt  admitted  the  theory  as  a  general 
principle,  he  stood  often  entirely  alone  in  his  apprehen- 


202  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

sion  of  its  practical  bearing  on  problems  of  mission  work 
and  in  his  uncompromising  readiness  to  adopt  at  all  haz- 
ards the  path  of  conduct  to  which  it  pointed. 

Such  solitude  is  ever  costly,  and  the  following  letter 
writen  three  years  later  to  Dr.  Lansing,  his  life-long 
friend,  shows  how  keenly  he  felt  on  the  matter  and  how 
earnestly  he  longed  to  have  his  views  shared  by  his 
fellows : 

"  I  have  thought  it  to  be  my  duty  to  myself  as  well 
as  to  you  to  copy  for  you  (a  second  time,  if  I  mistake 
not)  the  Whereases  and  Resolutions  referred  to  last 
night  in  the  shape  in  which  they  were  presented  to  the 
brethren  before  they  left  Cairo  and  which  were  amal- 
gamated into  one  action  after  their  arrival.  If  I  was 
sorry  at  the  dropping  out  of  a  number  of  the  Whereases, 
and  intimated  as  much  (which  I  probably  did),  I  must 
say  that  I  am  sorry  to  this  hour  for  their  omission, 
for  in  rewriting  them  these  last  two  hours  I  have  felt, 
and  the  feeling  has  increased  as  I  went  along  from  point 
to  point,  that  I  am  willing  to  have  these  same  Whereases, 
and  the  Resolutions  attached  (without  the  change  of  a 
single  iota),  copied  in  large  characters  in  the  Minute 
Book  of  Association  as  my  Epitaph  after  my  mission 
life  has  ended,  though  all  else  concerning  me  and  my 
work  were  blotted  out.  If  anything  could  add  to  the 
value  of  the  testimony  thus  given  to  my  personal  views 
of  the  true  aim  and  method  of  the  missionary  enterprise, 
it  would  be  to  add  in  a  footnote  a  short  abstract  of  last 
night's  remarks  as  tending  to  show  how  little  sympathy 
the  views  herein  avowed  and  defended  met  with  then 
or  meet  with  now  from  my  fellow-labourers  in  the  mis- 
sion field." 

As  is  evident  from  this  letter,  the  scheme  its  writer 
had  sketched  met  with  but  half-hearted  approval  from 
the  Missionary  Association,  and  when  remodelled  little 
of  the  original  documents  remained.    A  compromise  was 


THE  MISSIONARY  ENTERPRISE        203 

agreed  upon.  An  earnest  plea  was  sent  to  the  Board  to 
furnish  the  needed  recruits,  even  suggesting  that  the  aid 
of  some  sister  denomination  should  be  secured,  and  hint- 
ing that  without  reinforcements  it  might  become  necessary 
to  retire  temporarily  from  the  Coptic  field.  The  Associa- 
tion also  gave  its  sanction  to  the  development  of  Assiut 
Academy  into  a  Training  College,  appointing  a  committee 
to  solicit  the  necessary  funds  and  draw  out  plans  and 
estimates  for  a  building  half  the  size  suggested. 

Of  this  action  Assiut  College  stands  to-day  a  noble 
monument.  But  what  the  writer  had  wanted  was  not  only 
sanction  for  future  expansion,  but  enablement  for  im- 
mediate expansion  through  the  men  and  money  that 
would  be  at  the  mission's  disposal  if  the  policy  of  con- 
centration were  adopted ;  and  long  before  the  Associa- 
tion's actions  had  borne  any  fruit,  the  time  had  passed 
when  his  scheme  would  have  proved  adequate  to  the  sit- 
uation. The  opportunity  in  the  form  in  which  it  then 
existed  has  never  returned.  Had  it  been  seized  what 
would  have  been  the  consequence  ?  Would  a  higher  type 
of  Church  have  been  evolved  had  there  been  present  at  its 
very  centre  during  its  earliest  years  three  such  men  as 
Dr.  Hogg,  Dr.  Watson,  and  Dr.  Strang,  working  after  the 
plan  proposed  for  the  one  purpose  of  preparing  and  lead- 
ing into  service  a  native  missionary  force,  and  with  full 
freedom  to  admit  into  the  central  training  institution  every 
suitable  applicant?  Might  there  not  have  arisen  the  type 
of  Church  that  lived  ever  in  the  missionary's  dreams — a 
Church  in  which  membership  would  mean  active  service, 
and  the  bearing  of  office  would  mean  the  consecration  of 
life  to  the  training  and  leading  of  workers?  Was  the 
temporary  evacuation  of  Alexandria  too  high  a  price  to 
pay  for  such  a  possibility,  and  might  not  that  very  deed 
with  the  proof  that  it  offered  of  the  reality  of  the  need 


204.  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

that  lay  behind  the  mission's  constant  appeals,  have  proved 
the  means  necessary  to  stir  the  slumbering  fires  in  the 
hearts  of  the  home  Church  and  awaken  in  them  the  reso- 
lution to  change  retreat  into  advance  ?  To  such  questions 
there  can  be  no  certain  answer.  Life  is  hemmed  in  by 
veils  on  every  side,  and  not  less  impenetrable  than  the 
veil  of  death  or  the  veil  that  hides  to-morrow  from  to-day 
is  the  veil  that  hangs  forever  between  man's  past  and 
God's  vision  of  what  might  have  been. 

To  one  who  realises,  however,  the  situation  that  faced 
the  mission  band  as  they  considered  Dr.  Hogg's  proposals, 
the  measure  of  approval  bestowed  is  a  greater  surprise 
than  the  opposition  evoked.  For  his  scheme  dared,  as 
we  have  seen,  to  contemplate  the  choice  of  Assiut  as  the 
centre  for  a  large  Training  College  for  Egypt,  at  the  cost 
if  necessary  of  the  temporary  abandonment  of  work  in 
Alexandria.  Such  a  step  could  only  be  justified  by  one 
who  accepted  and  applied  to  the  need  of  the  times  the 
two  general  principles  which  Dr.  Hogg's  preambles  em- 
phasised, and  which  he  seems  to  have  considered  of  per- 
manent and  universal  application. 

What  were  these  principles? 

First,  that  when  a  mission  finds  it  impossible  to  secure 
sufficient  equipment  to  develop  effectively  all  it  has  under- 
taken, it  is  its  duty  to  sacrifice  the  good  on  the  altar  of 
the  best. 

Second,  that  in  deciding  what  to  sacrifice  and  on  what 
to  concentrate  it  should  confine  itself  to  the  question : 
"  What  will  prove  the  most  speedy  and  effective  means  of 
creating  in  this  country  a  native  evangelistic  force  ade- 
quate to  the  task  of  bringing  the  Gospel  within  the  reach 
of  every  inhabitant  ?  " 

But  to  Dr.  Hogg's  application  of  these  principles  the 
most  plausible  objections  existed.     Alexandria  was  the 


THE  MISSIONARY  ENTERPRISE        205 

second  city  in  the  country  and  had  been  a  centre  of  mis- 
sion work  long  before  Assiut  was  entered.  If  then  some 
part  of  the  work  must  be  sacrificed,  why  should  the  lot 
fall  there?  Again,  Cairo  was  the  political  and  (from  the 
point  of  view  of  Egypt's  population)  the  geographical 
centre  of  the  land.  In  creating  a  Training  College  for  the 
country  why  should  the  claims  of  the  metropolis  give 
place  to  those  of  Assiut,  which  was  considered  by  the 
aristocratic  natives  of  the  north  little  better  than  an  un- 
civilised village? 

To  the  first  question  Dr.  Hogg's  answer  was  that  while 
souls  were  everywhere  of  equal  value,  yet  so  far  as  win- 
ning Egypt  was  concerned  Alexandria  had  as  yet  proved 
the  least  efifective  of  the  mission  stations,  as  it  was 
also  indisputably  the  farthest  removed  from  the  Coptic 
area. 

To  the  second  he  replied  "  Colleges  grow,  they  are  not 
made,  and  mission  colleges  grow  with  the  growth  of  the 
mission  Church,"  an  answer  which  implied  that  the  loca- 
tion of  a  college  must  be  decided  by  the  progress  of 
events  rather  than  by  the  arbitrary  choice  of  men.  In  the 
soil  of  Upper  Egypt  the  mission  Church  had  flourished 
and  in  its  midst  had  developed  naturally  the  rudiments 
of  a  mission  college.  The  past  must  decide  the  future. 
In  the  soil  where  a  college  in  embryo  had  sprung  into 
being,  there  must  it  be  allowed  to  complete  its  develop- 
ment, though  the  past  had  found  that  soil  not  in  Cairo, 
the  political  metropolis  and  geographical  centre  of  the 
land,  but  in  primitive  Assiut,  the  metropolis  of  the  new 
Evangelical  Church  and  the  centre  of  the  Coptic  popula- 
tion. That  personally  his  judgment  approved  the  course 
events  had  taken  is  evident  from  the  concluding  sen- 
tences of  a  letter  penned  a  few  days  after  the  one  already 
quoted  and  addressed  to  the  same  friend. 


206  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

Calmly  thinking  on  the  general  subject  of  Cairo  versus 
Assiut,  my  opinion  is  now  as  it  has  been  for  many  years, 
that  if  you  wish  to  civilise  Egypt,  then  have  a  College  in 
Cairo,  and  if  you  wish  to  evangelise  Egypt,  have  not 
a  College,  but  as  I  have  called  it^  a  "  Training  College 
and  Missionary  Seminary  "  in  Assiut.  If  you  can  have 
both,  then  by  all  means  have  them.  If  only  one,  then 
the  bona  fide  Missionary  Institution  ought  to  have  the 
preference.  It  is  here,  if  I  mistake  not,  that  you  and 
I  differ,  yet  none  the  less  I  remain  as  ever, 

Your  loving  brother, 

J.  Hogg. 

When  these  last  words  were  penned  three  years  had 
elapsed  since  sanction  had  been  gained  from  the  mis- 
sion and  the  Board  for  the  future  expansion  of  Assiut 
Academy  into  a  college.  Some  practical  steps  had  in 
the  meantime  been  taken  towards  that  end.  Dr.  John- 
stone, the  medical  missionary,  having  consented  to  be- 
come first  joint-manager  and  then  principal  of  the  in- 
stitution, had  on  his  return  to  America  shortly  after  raised 
the  sum  of  $10,000  towards  the  project,  a  labour  which 
proved  to  be  the  closing  service  of  his  missionary  career. 
Dr.  Hogg  a  year  later,  while  in  Scotland  engaged  on  the 
preparation  of  an  Arabic  commentary,  had  persuaded 
the  students  of  his  old  Divinity  Hall  to  take  up  the  col- 
lege scheme,  and  cheering  letters  were  now  reaching  him 
with  news  of  their  success.  Moreover  he  had  about  the 
same  time  secured  as  colleague  in  the  Academy  Rev. 
J,  R.  Alexander,  a  man  whose  life  was  to  be  devoted  to 
its  interests,  and  this  advance  had  now  been  followed  by 
the  appointment  of  Rev.  John  Gififen  to  join  the  staff. 

Even  in  the  interval  between  the  appeal  for  recruits  in 
1874  and  the  arrival  after  eighteen  months  of  the  men  re- 
ferred to,  Dr.  Hogg  had  not  been  left  alone.  The  life 
of  desperate  effort  out  of  which  had  come  his  equally 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  COLLEGE  207 

desperate  appeal  ended  in  December,  when  he  rejoiced  in 
the  loan  during  successive  sessions  of  the  two  men  for 
whose  permanent  appointment  he  had  begged,  Mr.  Wat- 
son remaining  till  April,  1875,  to  share  in  the  theological 
department,  and  Mr.  Strang  following  from  July  till 
April,  1876,  to  take  charge  of  the  academical  department, 
the  work  of  both  men  naturally  overflowing  in  unnum- 
bered directions  beyond  the  bounds  of  their  special  ap- 
pointments. But  though  Dr.  Hogg's  own  life  was  thus 
eased  and  simplified,  the  Academy  was  less  mercifully 
treated,  for  while  efforts  were  in  progress  for  its  future 
expansion,  its  natural  growth  was  in  the  meantime  for 
financial  reasons  repressed — reluctantly,  but  with  telling 
effect.  While  the  call  for  native  workers  grew  more 
clamorous  and  Protestant  boys  more  eager  for  training. 
Dr.  Johnstone  during  his  short  inter-regnum  felt  forced 
to  turn  fifty  applicants  from  its  doors,  and  during  the 
succeeding  year  the  same  policy  was  regretfully  but 
conscientiously  practised. 

When  the  period  of  borrowed  help  ended,  the  burden 
of  responsibility  rolled  back  once  more  on  the  shoulders 
that  so  long  had  borne  it.  As  Mr.  Alexander  and  Mr. 
Giffen  were  new  to  the  language  and  the  field,  their  pres- 
ence, while  promising  ultimate  relief,  could  not  for  some 
time  decrease  greatly  the  responsibilities  of  their  senior, 
and  the  effect  of  their  labours  was  rather  to  give  in- 
creased efficiency  to  the  Academy  than  to  relieve  the 
strain.  In  the  session  of  1877-78  we  find  Dr.  Hogg  with 
as  multifarious  a  programme  as  ever,  and  conscious  that 
the  pace  he  was  attempting  was  in  part  demoralising. 
In  the  daily  routine  conscientious  performance  was  easy, 
but  the  extras  made  him  "  ache  "  and  he  found  himself 
shirking  the  small  duties,  unwilling  for  such  trifling  exer- 
tions as  the  lighting  of  a  lamp,  the  hunting  for  a  letter, 


208  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

the  writing  of  a  friendly  note,  the  doing  of  anything  that 
might  be  deferred  till  to-morrow.  And  yet  there  was 
not  wanting  a  certain  exhilaration  in  a  pace  so  rapid  to  a 
man  no  longer  fettered  by  the  trials  of  Job. 

A  birthday  note  to  Dr.  Lansing  breathes  this  spirit  of 
good  cheer, 

AssiUT,  1st  February,  1878. 
Dear  Dr.  Lansing, 

I  wish  you  many  years  of  solid  work  yet.  Yesterday 
was  the  anniversary  of  our  shipwreck  and  deliverance — 
eighteen  years  ago !  I  wonder  if  Methuselah  felt  old 
ever.  Do  you?  I  feel  more  like  what  I  used  to  feel 
when  in  my  'teens  than  I  ever  did  since  I  got  out  of 
them.  I  do  believe  now  that  I  am  really  to  survive  this 
session  after  all.  I  hardly  expected  it  when  I  left 
Ramleh. 

I  know  you  think  it  very  foolish  of  me — giving  the 
boys  so  many  hours  recitation.  Yet  how  slowly  do  they 
get  along,  after  all !  Every  spare  minute  has  been  spent 
by  me  in  preparation,  but  I  have  not  been  able  to  put 
pen  to  paper  this  year  in  the  way  of  writing  notes  for 
future  use.  The  Moral  Philosophy  class  I  have  greatly 
enjoyed.  .    .   . 

His  horizon  was  becoming  more  roseate.  By  impercept- 
ible degrees  the  situation  had  altered,  and  a  corresponding 
change  had  crept  unnoticed  into  the  life  and  thought  of 
the  man.  The  Academy  was  growing  in  size  and  effi- 
ciency. The  men  were  on  the  ground  who  would  make 
possible  the  development  he  could  not  achieve  alone  and 
whose  hands  would  be  well  qualified  to  hold  the  reins  if 
their  leader  should  fall  at  his  post.  How  entirely  the  insti- 
tution had  won  the  confidence  of  the  people  was  increas- 
ingly evident  in  the  representative  character  of  the  crowds 
that  thronged  the  building  when  the  annual  examination 
was  held.     The  audience  on  such  occasions  now  num- 


VISIT  OF  THE  KHEDIVE  209 

bered  not  less  than  a  thousand,  and  Mohammedans  and 
Copts,  wealthy  and  poor,  vied  with  each  other  in  their 
enthusiastic  praise  of  what  they  saw  and  heard. 

When  in  January,  1880,  the  new  Khedive,  Tewfik 
Pasha,  was  making  his  first  tour  in  the  south,  he  paid  but 
one  visit  on  the  great  day  of  his  arrival  in  the  town  of 
Assiut,  which,  bedecked  and  illuminated,  was  all  astir  to 
welcome  its  ruler,  and  that  visit  was  to  the  large  tent  in 
which  the  Academy  students,  well-drilled  and  orderly, 
were  gathered  to  do  him  honour.  He  listened  with  evident 
pleasure  while  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  faithful  har- 
monium they  sang  an  ode  composed  and  set  to  music  for 
the  occasion,  and  he  complimented  them  warmly  on  their 
performance.  As  he  repassed  the  spot  in  his  carriage  he 
bowed  repeated  acknowledgments  to  their  renewed  burst 
of  song,  and  next  day  when  Dr.  Hogg  in  company  with 
the  consuls  was  received  in  the  vice-regal  boat,  the  Khe- 
dive spent  the  short  time  of  their  call  in  questioning  the 
missionary  with  keen  interest  as  to  the  educational  work 
of  the  Upper  Country  whose  fame  had  reached  his  ears. 

The  public  were  not  slow  to  mark  these  little  incidents 
and  realise  their  full  significance,  and  there  were  many 
onlookers  who  could  point  a  striking  contrast  by  memories 
drawn  from  the  days  of  opposition  and  reproach. 

It  was  fifteen  years  before  that  the  school  thus  honoured 
had  been  born,  four  pupils  gathering  in  a  renovated 
stable  to  receive  their  first  lesson.  There  now  flourished 
as  feeders,  supported  entirely  by  the  people,  twenty-three 
branch  schools  scattered  up  and  down  the  country,  the 
majority  of  whose  teachers  had  received  their  training 
within  its  walls.  The  building  it  now  occupied  was  tot- 
tering to  its  fall,  but  199  pupils  had  been  enrolled  in  the 
past  year,  and  it  now  needed  but  a  suitable  home  to 
achieve  a  broader  and  more  rapid  development.    For  this 


210  WANTED:  A  COLLEGE 

the  first  two  acres  of  ground  had  at  length  been  secured 
after  years  of  repeated  efforts  and  endless  disappoint- 
ments, and  there  no  longer  lingered  any  possible  doubt 
that  the  College  for  whose  growth  Dr.  Hogg  had  planned 
and  laboured,  and  for  which  he  had  pleaded  with  God  and 
man,  would  indeed  be  built  as  he  had  dared  to  assert 
within  the  ten  years'  limit  he  had  assigned  in  looking 
forward. 

What  wonder  then  that  there  begins  henceforth  to 
creep  into  his  letters  evidence  of  a  change  in  the  main  cur- 
rent of  his  thoughts.  To  the  end  the  College  exacted  toll 
of  his  time  as  teacher  of  its  theological  department  and 
as  its  official  head,  but  it  gradually  ceased  to  make  the 
demands  that  drain  a  man's  life-blood.  Its  assured  suc- 
cess released  him  from  anxiety  for  its  future.  Efficient 
and  congenial  colleagues  relieved  him  from  many  of  the 
minor  worries  of  daily  administration.  His  life  became 
increasingly  engrossed  in  the  native  Church  beyond  its 
bounds,  for  whose  sake  the  institution  had  been  enlarged 
and  developed,  and  whose  usefulness  if  not  her  very  life 
were  in  jeopardy,  unless  she  were  trained  more  ade- 
quately for  the  great  work  of  the  Kingdom. 


XIV 

THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

Oft  when  the  Word  is  on  me  to  deliver. 
Lifts  the  illusion  and  the  truth  lies  bare; 

Desert  or  throng,  the  city  or  the  river. 
Melts  in  a  lucid  Paradise  of  air. 

Only  like  souls  I  see  the  folk  thereunder. 

Bound  who  should  conquer,  slaves  who  should  be  kings. 
Hearing  their  one  hope  with  an  empty  wonder. 

Sadly  contented  with  a  show  of  things. 

Then  with  a  rush  the  intolerable  craving 

Shivers  throughout  me  like  a  trumpet-call, — 

O  to  save  these !  to  perish  for  their  saving. 
Die  for  their  life,  be  offered  for  them  all ! 

— F.  W.  H.  Myers  :  St.  Paul. 

WE  turn  now  to  that  phase  of  Dr.  Hogg's  life 
which  has  gripped  most  strongly  the  heart  and 
imagination  of  the  people  amongst  whom  he 
laboured.  The  "  Hoj  "  of  the  villagers  is  a  man  who 
had  "  no  continuing  city,"  who  was  "  in  journeyings 
often,  in  perils  of  rivers,  in  perils  of  robbers,  in  labour  and 
travail,  in  watchings  often,  in  hunger  and  thirst." 

"  In  recalling,"  says  Ruskin,  "  the  impressions  we  have 
received  from  the  works  of  man,  after  a  lapse  of  time 
long  enough  to  involve  in  obscurity  all  but  the  most  vivid, 
it  often  happens  that  we  find  a  strange  pre-eminence  and 
durability  in  many  upon  whose  strength  we  had  little 
calculated,    and    that    points    of    character    which    had 

211 


212     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

escaped  the  detection  of  the  judgment,  become  developed 
under  the  waste  of  memory." 

At  first  glance  such  a  picture  of  the  man  as  the  vil- 
lagers have  preserved  seems  extravagantly  incorrect. 
Four-fifths  of  his  life  in  the  Upper  Country  was  such  a 
life  as  we  have  described,  that  of  a  man  bound  to  a 
central  station,  his  recreation,  preachings,  and  study,  and 
his  daily  work  teaching,  translating,  writing,  and  grap- 
pling with  the  indefinite  sundries  that  are  the  thorn  in 
the  flesh  of  every  man  whose  moments  are  valued  with 
reference  to  some  consuming  central  purpose. 

Yet  a  minute  examination  of  the  facts  may  go  far  to 
modify  one's  opinion.  In  writing  of  Dr.  Hogg's  work- 
ing capacity  one  of  his  colleagues  remarks,  "  He  fre- 
quently accomplished  at  one  sitting, — protracted  per- 
haps for  hours, — what  many  other  men  required  days 
to  do."  And  another,  also  a  worker  of  no  mean  power, 
testifies  that  "  The  only  drawback  to  association  with 
him  was  that  no  man  of  ordinary  energy  and  endur- 
ance could  bear  comparison  with  him  in  the  amount 
of  labour  accomplished  within  a  given  period."  One 
cannot  measure  work  as  one  measures  time,  cutting 
it  into  lengths  of  equal  value,  and  when  we  take 
into  consideration  the  intensity  that  characterised  him, 
the  estimate  that  the  people  have  placed  on  the  fifth 
of  his  life  that  he  devoted  to  village  work  may  seem 
nearer  the  mark  of  truth,  crowded  as  it  was  with  experi- 
ences that  would  fill  any  ordinary  canvas. 

Moreover  a  character  should  be  portrayed,  whether  in 
picture  or  story,  in  the  environment  most  fitted  to  throw 
into  relief  its  distinctive  qualities  and  convey  vividly  to 
others  its  power  or  its  charm,  and  Dr.  Hogg's  character 
found  in  village  work  such  an  environment.  "  After 
teaching  the  young  "  he  confessed,  "  there  is  nothing  I 


VILLAGE  WORK  213 

would  rather  do  than  preach  to  fellahin,"  and  amongst 
the  villages  both  ruling  passions  had  free  play.  Whether 
he  conducted  the  examination  of  a  village  school,  or  in 
a  private  house  drew  out  the  powers  of  some  youthful 
scion  of  the  family,  he  did  it  with  an  effortless  art  to 
which  the  breathless  attention  and  keen  enjoyment  of  his 
audience  paid  unconscious  tribute.  When  he  preached 
"  he  translated  himself  into  Arabic,"  not  merely  his  words. 
For  it  was  not  only  in  accent,  idiom,  tone,  and  gesture  that 
he  displayed  the  power  of  unconscious  "  sympathetic  imi- 
tation." That  power  seemed  to  take  a  wider  range,  and 
when  mingling  with  the  people  he  became  so  thoroughly 
Egyptian  that  whether  preaching,  conversing,  or  living  in 
their  homes,  his  message  flowed  out  spontaneously  in 
terms  of  the  people's  life.  His  ready  adjustment  to  the 
exigencies  of  village  work,  his  lavish  and  uncalculating 
expenditure  of  force  in  turning  to  advantage  its  oppor- 
tunities, and  his  joyous  ardour  and  freedom  in  the  serv- 
ice, force  on  one  the  conviction  that  here  we  have  the 
most  unrestrained  revelation  of  what  was  most  distinctive 
of  the  man,  and  that  since  the  memory  of  the  public  can- 
not preserve  in  perfect  balance  the  varying  features  of 
any  human  life,  its  choice  of  emphasis  in  the  present  case 
has  been  just. 

The  cost  that  he  willingly  paid  for  opportunities  of 
itinerating  is  also  suggestive.  It  was  by  no  happy  acci- 
dent that  he  managed  to  save  a  fifth  of  his  time  from  the 
rasping  claims  of  the  work  at  the  centre.  He  saved  it  at 
a  cost  that  savoured  to  some  of  madness. 

During  the  winter  of  1873-74 — when  sleepless,  ill, 
and  overworked,  he  battled  with  a  programme  of  classes 
that  left  no  margin  for  an  increasing  pile  of  unaccom- 
plished extras, — he  gave  his  one  and  only  week  of  vaca- 
tion to  the  most  arduous  labours  from  aboard  the  "  Ibis  " : 


214     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

and  when  the  session  ended  and  neuralgia  loosened  its 
grip  after  keeping  him  for  weeks  in  its  toils,  it  was  to 
Nile  work  he  devoted  the  hot  months  of  vacation.  Again 
and  again,  summer  after  summer,  the  same  thing  was 
attempted,  though  a  temperature  of  iio°  was  not  un- 
common in  the  cabin,  and  the  woodwork  of  the  deck  was 
sometimes  uncomfortably  hot  at  midnight. 

"  If  I  am  mad,"  he  wrote  to  an  expostulating  com- 
rade, "  there  is  at  least  some  method  in  my  madness.  Of 
course  it  is  a  very  reckless  waste  of  vis  inertiae  or  rather 
of  vis  vitae  to  drive  a  poor  mortal  in  this  fashion  in  such 
a  climate  as  Egypt,  but  where  would  the  Upper  Egypt 
mission  have  been  to-day  had  I  acted  otherwise?  As 
for  my  motives  in  so  acting  I  would  humbly  refer  to 
H  Cor.  v,  13-15." 

Heat  was  not  the  only  discomfort  connected  with 
itineracy.  In  many  a  village  insults  were  heaped  upon 
him.  Not  infrequently  the  filth  of  the  streets  was  flung 
after  him  by  the  way,  and  words  as  filthy  were  called 
loudly  in  contempt  and  derision  as  he  passed,  while  on 
one  occasion  vile  water  was  poured  on  his  head  through 
a  gap  in  the  ceiling  of  a  room  from  which  his  audience 
had  been  forcibly  ejected. 

A  wholesome  and  adventurous  soul  could  not  be 
greatly  moved  by  such  incidentals,  and  they  receive  no 
notice  in  his  correspondence  except  when  connected  with 
some  story  of  unusual  interest.  But  they  have  made  a 
profound  impression  on  the  people  for  whom  he  laboured, 
and  many  tales  are  told  to  illustrate  the  hardships  he  en- 
dured. 

Of  one  of  the  most  popular  his  own  account  remains 
to  show  how  fact  and  fancy  mingle  in  such  current  lore. 
The  story  has  many  versions  and  we  tell  it  as  related  by 
a  fine  old  patriarch. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  ROBBERS         215 

At  a  village  many  miles  distant  from  Assiut  Dr. 
Hogg  had  been  paying  one  of  his  periodic  visits.  The 
evening  meeting  was  over  and  the  missionary  had  sat 
late  in  conversation  with  his  host  and  his  friends,  when 
to  the  amazement  of  all  he  rose  to  bid  them  adieu.  In 
vain  they  urged  him  to  spend  the  night  with  them,  ex- 
patiating on  the  length  of  the  way  and  the  robbers  that 
infested  the  district.  He  would  neither  await  the  day- 
light nor  accept  an  escort.  His  work  necessitated  his 
reaching  Assiut  by  morning,  and  in  the  Lord's  keeping 
he  was  as  safe  as  with  armed  men.  He  had  not  walked 
far  in  the  dense  darkness  when  he  was  accosted  by  a 
robber  band  who  demanded  his  gold  watch  and  purse. 
These  he  surrendered  without  demur,  surprising  his 
marauders  with  the  gratuitous  information  that  he  had 
with  him  still  another  treasure  that  he  would  gladly 
add  to  their  store.  To  their  chagrin  all  that  he  drew 
from  his  pocket  was  a  small  book,  but  his  audience  were 
soon  so  entranced  by  the  magic  of  his  tongue  and  of 
that  priceless  Word,  that  their  greed  speedily  vanished, 
their  consciences  awoke,  and  they  began  to  hunger  for 
salvation.  Before  morning  dawned  the  whole  band  had 
been  converted  and  were  eager  to  return  to  him  his 
stolen  goods.  But  the  purse  he  refused,  and  as  one  and 
all,  Copts  and  Moslems  alike,  had  decided  to  abandon 
their  life  of  robbery,  he  supported  them  liberally  from 
that  time  forward  out  of  his  own  pocket  until  they  had 
learned  to  earn  an  honest  living  and  had  become  re- 
spected and  God-fearing  members  of  the  Church ! 

It  seems  heartless  to  destroy  so  romantic  a  tale,  but  the 
original  story  itself  deserves  preservation  as  recounted 
by  the  chief  actors  Dr.  Hogg  and  Mr.  Shenoodeh  Hanna, 
his  companion  on  the  historic  occasion.  Their  story  runs 
as  follows: 

After  a  hasty  breakfast  on  a  hot  Saturday  in  June,  the 
two  friends  left  the  "  Ibis  "  at  sunrise  to  walk  to  the 
village  of  Tahta  two  and  a  half  miles  distance   from 


216     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

the  river.  They  were  warmly  received  by  the  only 
Protestant  in  the  place,  and  his  house  was  so  continu- 
ously crowded  by  eager  listeners  that  for  once  Egyptian 
hospitality  seemed  swamped  by  the  tide  of  interest,  and 
the  bodily  wants  of  the  preachers  were  completely  over- 
looked. 

All  day  long  they  read  and  sang  and  preached  and 
prayed,  the  changing  audience  fresh  and  eager,  the 
speakers  weaker  and  fainter  with  the  passing  hours, 
and  all  proposals  to  leave  were  overborne  by  the  host's 
repeated  assertion  that  he  would  feel  forever  disgraced 
if  his  guests  should  quit  his  house  without  food.  At 
last,  after  fourteen  hours  of  fasting,  a  sumptuous  meal 
was  spread,  and  of  this  the  famished  men  partook  with 
more  speed  than  wisdom  before  starting  out  with  a 
suitable  escort  to  ride  to  the  river.  A  jolting  donkey 
is  no  happy  sequel  to  a  hasty  meal,  and  Dr.  Hogg,  finding 
his  companion  unable  to  ride  and  his  escort  restive  under 
enforced  delay,  decided  that  they  would  complete  their 
journey  on  foot  and  unaccompanied.  The  servants  with 
some  polite  demur  gladly  availed  themselves  of  the  re- 
prieve, and  the  two  preachers  started  riverward  alone. 
When  they  reached  the  water's  edge  the  boat  was  not 
in  sight,  and  whether  the  landing  lay  north  or  south 
they  could  not  tell.  Some  men  when  accosted  misled 
them,  either  by  mistake  or  of  set  purpose,  their  lack  of 
a  lantern  perhaps  arousing  suspicions,  and  the  night  wore 
on  in  fruitless  and  solitary  wanderings. 

Suddenly  they  observed  on  the  river  bank  a  man,  inno- 
cent of  clothes  and  bearing  a  gun,  who  started  towards 
them  till  arrested  by  the  sight  of  their  shouldered  um- 
brellas, which  in  the  starlight  passed  easily  for  firearms. 
The  younger  man  was  distracted  with  fear,  and  still  more 
so  when  he  heard  the  sound  of  swimmers  in  the  river 
perhaps  coming  to  join  their  naked  friend  in  some  bloody 
deed.  The  two  wanderers  walked  on  as  if  unheeding, 
but  when  a  little  distance  was  gained,  turned  inland, 
running  rapidly  to  reach  a  point  invisible  from  the  beach. 
Avoiding  Scylla,  they  came  as  it  seemed  upon  Charybdis 
— a  group  of  smokers,  three  men  and  a  boy,  two  of  them 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  ROBBERS         217 

armed  and  with  the  usual  vicious  guard  of  watch-dogs. 
Dr.  Hogg  thought  it  best  to  throw  himself  frankly  on 
their  protection,  and  as  the  dogs  sprang  forward  with 
a  threatening  welcome,  "  Call  off  your  dogs,''  he  cried, 
"  and  I  shall  tell  you  a  story  that  will  make  you  laugh." 
A  discussion  followed,  and  they  were  soon  received 
within  the  smoking  circle  to  spend  the  remainder  of  the 
night  in  this  strange  company.  As  sleep  was  distant, 
it  was  proposed  to  pass  the  time  in  songs  and  tales,  and 
Mr.  Shenoodeh  chose  a  Bible  story  that  gave  him  the 
opportunity  of  dwelling  on  the  sin  of  murder  and  the 
fearful  punishment  awaiting  the  guilty,  a  tale  which 
brought  from  one  of  his  listeners  the  confession  that 
only  his  brother's  intervention  had  prevented  him  from 
shooting  at  Mr.  Shenoodeh  on  his  first  approach.  To- 
wards morning  the  air  grew  cold,  and  the  missionary, 
made  anxious  by  his  young  friend's  cough,  dug  a  deep 
hole  for  him  in  the  sand  and  buried  him  to  the  neck,  after 
which  both  secured  some  broken  sleep.  At  dawn  one 
of  their  guard  accompanied  them  to  the  boat,  lying  miles 
from  the  spot  at  which  they  had  encamped,  and  received 
for  the  service  a  backsheesh  that  sent  him  away  blessing 
their  memory. 

There  are  discrepancies  in  the  tale  even  as  narrated 
by  the  two  concerned,  but  these  are  easily  explained  by 
the  fact  that  the  younger  man,  during  the  colloquy  that 
preceded  the  promise  of  a  night's  protection,  spent  the 
time  in  anxious  prayer  except  when  personally  addressed, 
and  would  thus  naturally  miss  some  explanations.  That 
one  of  the  men  was  on  the  point  of  firing  at  them  both 
narratives  agree.  But  Mr.  Shenoodeh  says,  "  This  made 
us  certain  that  these  men  were  highway  robbers  (a  most 
natural  inference  as  they  were  in  a  neighbourhood  in- 
fested by  them),  while  Dr.  Hogg  states  that  the  men  were 
about  to  shoot  them  in  self-defence,  having  received  warn- 
ing in  their  village  an  hour  before  that  two  suspicious 
characters  were  wandering  along  the  bank,  and  having 


218     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

come  for  the  express  purpose  of  watching  their  melon- 
crop  against  the  marauders. 

The  only  real  sequel  to  the  story  was  that  Mr.  She- 
noodeh  wove  it  into  an  ingenious  and  thrilling  sermon, 
which  greatly  moved  his  audience  when  it  was  preached 
in  Assiut  a  few  days  later,  and  that  while  the  sermon  was 
being  written  the  morning  after  the  adventure,  his  com- 
panion in  labour  having  bathed  and  breakfasted  returned 
to  Tahta  and  preached,  to  audiences  varying  from  twelve 
to  forty,  five  long  discourses. 

While  this  is  the  only  tale  in  which  robbers  figure, 
there  are  scattered  over  his  correspondence  many  inci- 
dents equally  picturesque,  illustrative  of  the  phase  of  mis- 
sion life  with  which  we  are  dealing,  revealing  sometimes 
its  hardships  but  always  to  an  understanding  soul  its 
elusive  charm. 

Their  first  Communion  service  held  at  Luxor  is  one  of 
these.  The  missionary  was  alone  on  the  "  Ibis,"  suffering 
from  an  attack  of  biliousness.  The  thermometer  in  the 
cabin  had  reached  114°  and  the  hour  for  the  meeting  had 
arrived.  He  dragged  himself  wearily,  lifelessly,  to  the 
house,  in  which  some  kind  helpers  had  got  ready  for  the 
supper  an  upper  room,  matted  and  carpeted,  and  a  little 
table  roughly  spread.  The  audience  numbered  seventy- 
two,  every  spot  that  a  speaker's  voice  could  reach  being 
utilised — the  roof,  the  stair,  the  court. 

Characteristically,  the  spell  of  his  surroundings  fell 
upon  the  man,  and  seemed  suddenly  to  touch  some  secret 
spring  of  strength. 

"  Opposite  to  where  I  stood,"  he  writes,  "  was  an 
open  window,  a  cubit  square,  through  which  I  could  see 
the  empty  tombs  of  the  old  Thebans  in  the  brown  Libyan 
hills.  Across  the  plain,  and  by  stepping  two  feet  to  the 
right,  I  could  descry  *  Vocal  Memnon '  and  his  dumb 


COMMUNION  SERVICE  AT  LUXOR     219 

consort,  Kurnah  and  Medinet  Habou.  all  in  one  view. 
The  ghosts  of  forty  centuries  or  more  seemed  to  be 
gazing  from  those  empty  tombs  across  the  plain  at  the 
unwonted  spectacle  of  a  gospel  feast  being  spread  in  this 
upper  room  within  a  stone-cast  from  the  temple  of 
Amenoph  III  and  Rameses  the  Great.  The  spirit  of  the 
vision  took  possession  of  me  and  my  biliousness  van- 
ished." 


The  examination  of  the  candidates  for  membership 
interested  him  intensely,  and  one  is  constantly  struck  with 
the  personal  and  searching  character  of  the  ordeal  as  he 
conducted  it.  Any  who  expected  that  an  intellectual 
knowledge  of  the  truth  would  suffice  them  would  be 
sorely  disappointed.  Two  who  bought  and  sold  grain 
made  a  solemn  promise  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  com- 
pany that  they  would  use  false  measures  no  longer. 
One  said  he  had  abandoned  them  on  the  day  he  became  a 
Christian,  and  that  while  his  gains  had  been  much  re- 
duced his  bread  had  been  given  him,  and  he  could  now 
sleep  at  night  with  a  clear  conscience.  The  third,  a 
weaver,  pledged  himself  in  like  manner  to  steal  no  more 
yarn,  and  the  missionary  could  see  conscience  at  work 
among  the  onlookers. 

A  silver  communion  set  had  been  borrowed  for  this 
occasion,  but  on  his  next  visit  to  the  same  town  an  old 
pewter  teapot  with  a  broken  lid,  two  thick  tumblers,  and  a 
coarse  plate,  were  all  that  could  be  secured  to  hold  the  ele- 
ments, while  the  candidates  for  admission  to  the  Church 
were  nowhere  visible.  They  were  there,  however, — three 
women  squatting  humbly  in  a  remote  corner,  carefully 
concealed  from  view  by  a  thick  curtain  extending  from 
floor  to  ceiling,  through  which  questions  and  answers  had 
to  find  a  passage.  The  preacher  at  first  found  his  sense  of 
humour  troublesome,  but  the  simple  unabashed  replies 


220     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

soon  dissipated  any  sense  of  strangeness,  and  the  sepa- 
rating curtain  seemed  to  help  the  unseen  candidates  to 
unveil  their  hearts. 

Some  of  the  labours  of  the  road  appear  in  the  following 
letter,  which  shows  also  what  a  valuable  asset  he  pos- 
sessed in  a  vigorous  frame.  Writing  to  Dr.  Barr,  presi- 
dent of  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  in  America,  he 
says: 

"  I  have  been  *  roughing '  it  a  little  this  last  fort- 
night among  the  out-stations.  The  whole  Nile  valley  is 
flooded  over  at  present,  so  that  one  has  to  travel  twenty 
miles  zigzag  along  the  dykes  to  reach  a  village  eight 
miles  distant.  In  going  to  Azziyah  from  Menfalut  sta- 
tion I  had  to  cross  the  inundation  (three-quarters  of  a 
mile  broad)  on  a  raft  made  of  two  pieces  of  the  trunk 
of  a  palm  tree  and  a  bunch  or  two  of  dried  corn-stalks. 
I  had  an  aquatic  escort  of  four  brawny  Protestants — 
two  out-swimmers,  and  one  balancing  and  pushing  on 
either  side  of  the  *  car,'  so  that  we  resembled  Neptune 
and  his  Nereids  at  a  distance.  A  nearer  view  broke  the 
'  enchantment ' — as  it  always  does,  you  ki  ow.  After 
conducting  two  services,  one  in  the  afternoon  at  which 
half  a  dozen  young  Protestants  were  baptised,  and  an- 
other long  one  in  the  evening,  attended  by  all  the  town, 
at  which  I  bound  a  couple  together  for  better  or  for 
worse — most  probably  the  latter, — a  sleepless  night 
spent  in  a  passage  on  the  leeward  side  of  forty  or  fifty 
natives  who  passed  the  night  on  the  '  church '  floor,  and 
a  Communion  service  of  four  and  a  half  hours'  dura- 
tion, I  returned  next  afternoon  as  I  came,  except  that 
after  crossing  the  flood  I  had  to  walk  to  Menfalut  (seven 
or  eight  miles),  as  my  poor  donkey  of  the  previous  day 
had  not  yet  recovered  from  the  fatigues  of  his  passage. 

"  The  last  place  I  visited  we  spent  five  hours  in  going 
there  and  thirteen  in  returning — all  in  a  small  open 
boat.  With  a  good  wind  we  could  have  done  it  in  an 
hour  and  a  half.  I  took  a  hasty  spoonful  or  two  of  rice 
and  milk  at  sunrise  before  leaving — found  the  congre- 


"  ROUGHING  "  IT  821 

gation  had  been  waiting  on  me  for  hours  on  our  arrival, 
and  therefore  without  waiting  for  refreshments  began 
the  series  of  services  (examination  of  candidates  for 
church  membership,  baptisms,  Communion,  etc.)  which 
lasted  nearly  four  hours,  had  breakfast  at  sunset,  and 
then  left.  Our  boat  stuck  in  the  middle  of  the  inunda- 
tion, and  we  did  not  get  home  till  three  hours  after 
sunrise  next  morning. 

"  The  above  will  give  you  an  idea  of  what  I  mean  by 
'  roughing '  it.  I  did  not  mean  to  give  you  such  a  long 
'  screed,'  but  it  will  perhaps  amuse  you.  I  have  had 
three  weeks  of  it  and  it  seems  to  have  done  me  good." 

The  reputation  he  gained  for  physical  strength  was  not 
always  to  his  advantage  however.  That  any  efifort  could 
be  beyond  his  power  did  not  often  occur  to  his  parishoners. 

On  one  such  occasion  he  had  started  feeling  ill,  but 
without  definite  symptoms,  to  fulfil  engagements  at  Beni 
Adi,  and  Azziyah.  It  was  a  roasting  afternoon  in  June. 
His  road  lay  over  rough  ground,  baked  and  rent  by  the 
sun,  and  for  an  hour  and  a  half  he  was  forced  to  walk 
dragging  his  donkey  behind  him  over  gaps  and  clods.  A 
long  heavy  service  awaited  his  arrival,  followed  by  a  late 
supper  and  sleep  in  an  open  court,  from  which  he  woke 
next  morning  hot  and  shivering  in  the  grip  of  tonsilitis. 
It  seemed  impossible  for  the  people  to  realise  that  he 
was'  *'  dead  down  sick,"  and  he  was  dragged  to  house 
after  house  and  asked  for  a  solution  of  every  difficulty 
that  had  accumulated  since  his  last  visit,  from  a  question 
of  school  fees  to  the  mysterious  prophecies  in  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  Revelation.  Its  "  woes  "  proved  his  last  straw, 
but  after  he  had  tossed  and  turned  for  hours  on  a  hard 
mattress  he  was  again  entreated  to  rise.  One  more  visit 
was  absolutely  necessary.  Some  "  big  "  man  who  was 
just  beginning  to  regard  the  cause  with  favour  would  be 
seriously  offended  if  omitted,  and  the  sick  man  forced 


222     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

himself  through  the  ordeal  as  required.  The  morning 
brought  him  another  ride  that  was  one  long  pain,  and  the 
preacher  reached  his  new  congregation  so  ill  that  he  had 
to  lie  on  a  divan  till  the  point  was  reached  in  the  service 
at  which  his  presence  became  indispensable,  the  reception 
of  new  members  and  dispensing  of  the  sacrament. 

Jawili  was  the  next  point  awaiting  him,  but  fortunately 
he  returned  to  the  "  Ibis  "  on  the  way,  and  his  wife  as 
nurse  and  doctor  forbade  further  effort.  After  forty- 
eight  hours  he  was  still  so  ill  that  Cairo  was  talked  of,  but 
through  the  night  a  turning  point  was  reached  and  next 
morning,  weak  and  shaky,  he  declared  himself  cured. 
That  very  afternoon  he  undertook  a  baptismal  service 
involving  a  long  ride  and  late  hours,  and  during  eight 
successive  days  visited  eight  different  villages  holding  one 
or  two  services  in  each,  with  no  sense  throughout  of 
submitting  to  unavoidable  martyrdom,  but  buoyed  up  by 
the  interest  and  pleasure  of  his  work,  and  nursing  an 
obstinate  conviction  that  from  the  continued  effort  he 
was  deriving  physical  benefit. 

We  have  referred  to  1879  ^^  the  date  at  which  the 
change  of  emphasis  in  Dr.  Hogg's  life  began  to  appear 
and  his  "  care  of  all  the  churches  "  to  become  more  absorb- 
ing. But  from  the  time  of  their  planting  much  oversight 
had  been  essential,  and  each  year  a  tour,  however  short, 
had  been  attempted.  In  1876  he  made  his  first  experi- 
ment in  combining  the  training  of  theologues  with 
itineracy,  and  at  all  times  when  possible  he  had  with  him 
as  his  companions  Egyptian  workers — licentiates  and  col- 
porteurs, or  even  senior  students  from  the  College.  The 
advanced  classes  dismissed  early  to  render  such  vacation 
service  possible,  and  the  young  men  dropped  off  at  various 
stations  on  the  route,  the  missionary  remaining  only  long 
enough  to  see  them  fairly  launched  in  their  new  sphere, 


APPEALS  FOR  REDRESS  223 

and  returning  in  the  autumn  when  necessary  to  make 
local  arrangements  for  carrying  on  the  work  begun,  while 
the  worker  resumed  his  studies. 

In  his  oversight  he  was  never  for  any  lengthened 
period  the  sole  worker.  River  trips  fell  from  time  to 
time  to  the  lot  of  other  missionaries,  and  in  1876  Rev. 
Tadrus  Yusuf,  the  pastor  of  Nakheilah,  also  did  valiant 
service.  But  while  others  came  and  went  who  laboured 
with  equal  earnestness  and  whom  God  ble&sed  abundantly 
in  the  work,  there  remained  to  Dr.  Hogg  from  first  to  last 
a  mass  of  responsibility  which  none  could  share.  Per- 
manently settled  in  the  midst  of  the  people,  it  was  to  him 
they  naturally  turned  in  every  perplexity,  and  to  him  they 
voiced  every  complaint,  with  "  Are  you  not  our  father?  " 
as  all-sufficient  excuse. 

Such  responsibility  did  not  always  take  the  interesting 
and  personal  form  that  awakens  love  and  gratitude. 
Often  it  consisted  mainly  of  long  and  dreary  correspond- 
ence, or  a  heavy  battery  of  appeals  for  redress  aimed  at 
official  quarters,  while  those  in  whose  interests  he  laboured 
showered  letters  upon  him  as  plaintively  as  though  he 
were  idly  forgetting  their  troubles.  Amongst  such  cares 
stand  out  pre-eminently  the  Motiah  and  Kus  cases ;  in 
the  former  liberty  to  build  and  in  the  latter  liberty  to 
worship  being  withheld  by  government  for  four  and  five 
years  respectively  as  the  result  of  local  intrigue.  To  these 
was  added  a  case  of  more  flagrant  persecution  at  Nakadah 
where  two  Copts  were  bastinadoed  by  a  powerful  co- 
religionist for  visiting  at  the  house  of  a  Protestant,  one 
of  them  dying  shortly  after  in  consequence  of  the  cruelty. 
While  in  Britain  in  the  summer  of  1876  Dr.  Hogg  did 
his  utmost  through  the  Evangelical  Alliance  to  rouse  the 
British  Foreign  Office  to  action,  and  after  protracted  de- 
lay the  Egyptian  Government  redressed  the  grievances, 


224     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

and  thereby  extinguished  the  local  opposition  as  suddenly 
and  effectively  as  though  it  had  been  but  a  candle  flame, 
not  even  a  smoky  trace  remaining  visible  in  the  air.  The 
redress,  however,  was  only  secured  after  reams  of  paper 
and  gallons  of  midnight  oil  had  been  consumed  in  sacrifice. 

In  1877,  besieged  by  requests  for  a  personal  visit  and 
bound  to  his  centre  by  a  programme  of  work  that  proved 
absolutely  prohibitive,  Dr.  Hogg  mapped  out  a  scheme 
for  oversight  by  means  of  statistics,  and  set  himself  to 
train  his  workers  to  keep  accurate  account  of  work  done, 
and  of  the  changing  conditions  at  their  various  stations. 
A  list  of  thirty  questions  was  drafted,  printed,  and  dis- 
tributed, and  a  college  student  initiated  into  the  art  of 
tabulating  clearly  the  monthly  replies.  The  questions 
were  so  elaborated  as  to  prevent  flagrant  guesswork  on 
the  part  of  the  worker  from  passing  unrevealed.  While 
a  few  stations  failed  to  respond  and  blunders  were  often 
made,  yet  the  system  succeeded  sufficiently  to  place  in  his 
hands  the  data  for  deriving  a  fairly  correct  estimate  of 
the  conditions  prevailing  over  the  field,  and  the  varying 
efficiency  of  the  workers  employed. 

To  his  successors  such  tables  of  names  and  figures  are 
less  illuminating,  but  the  work  had  not  yet  grown  be- 
yond the  limits  of  intimate  and  complete  knowledge. 
Each  worker  was  a  living  personality  to  him, — a  man  he 
had  helped  to  mould  and  had  sent  forth  in  hope  and 
prayer.  Each  place  held  for  him  some  vivid  memory  of 
the  past,  to  which  the  Hst  of  figures  often  made  a  striking 
foreground.  While  this  system  might  prove  admirable 
for  discovering  flaws,  their  cure  remained  no  easier  to 
effect  than  before,  and  sometimes  the  problems  thrust 
on  him  made  him  feel  as  though  on  him  rested  the  bur- 
den of  keeping  the  whole  "  monstrous  machine  "  in  mo- 
tion, and  he  were  about  to  be  crushed  in  the  attempt.    He 


METHODS  OF  OVERSIGHT  225 

then  proposed  a  scheme  for  dividing  the  responsibility 
by  allocating  different  districts  to  different  missionaries 
and  pastors,  but  though  this  was  adopted  conditions  re- 
mained unaltered,  as  neither  he  nor  they  were  able  to 
visit  the  districts  allotted  to  them,  and  while  his  own 
district  stood  badly  in  need  of  a  man  in  its  midst,  appeals 
from  other  places  also  continued  to  revert  to  him  as  the 
man  best  known  and  nearest. 

He  felt  that  if  the  Evangelical  Church  of  Egypt  was 
to  be  left  to  itself  at  so  early  a  stage  of  advancement,  it 
would  do  no  more  for  the  Mohammedans  and  for  Africa 
than  the  Coptic  Church  had  done,  for  even  the  best  labour- 
ers, without  the  stimulus  of  frequent  visits,  relaxed  their 
efforts.  They  lacked  initiative,  but  rallied  gladly  to  the 
call  of  a  leader.  Letters  were  ineffective.  What  they 
needed  was  suggestions  embodied  in  the  concrete,  some 
one  in  their  midst  with  the  power  to  initiate  and  organise, 
leaving  them  the  task  of  imitating  and  completing  the 
copy  set.  He  wrote  in  distress  to  his  colleagues  in  the 
north,  and  the  situation  was  relieved  by  the  appointment 
of  Dr.  Harvey  during  two  consecutive  years  to  spend  six 
months  in  the  Luxor  district. 

The  summer  of  1878  Dr.  Hogg  spent  chiefly  in  the 
translation  for  his  theological  class  of  his  friend  Dr. 
Calderwood's  Handbook  of  Moral  Philosophy,  completing 
his  first  draft  of  the  work  with  extreme  relish  in  sixty 
working  days.  In  the  autumn  the  inundation  brought  dis- 
tress to  the  whole  land,  a  year  of  flood  following  a  year 
of  drought  bringing  disease  of  every  kind  in  its  train. 
Every  station  suffered.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alexander  were 
laid  low  with  typhoid  fever  and  Dr.  Hogg's  own  family 
suffered  much,  the  parents  often  at  their  wits'  end  as  to 
how  to  treat  their  children's  ills.  The  heat  was  terrific, 
pillows  and  mattresses  even  in  the  night  hours  unbearably 


226     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

hot,  and  the  children  in  such  a  miserable  state  that  the 
father  spent  four  nights  swinging  them  in  a  hammock  as 
the  only  way  of  stilling  their  distressed  cries.  "  Do  you 
know  what  it  is,"  he  wrote  to  his  brother,  "  to  get  so 
fagged  that  you  can't  be  bothered  to  fix  your  mind  on 
anything?  For  months  past  I  have  felt  so  every  night, 
and  often  I  have  spent  hours  rolling  on  the  sofa, — too 
tired  to  sit  up  or  lie  still  " ;  and  his  wife  remarks  "  John 
has  been  nurse  and  doctor  and  is  much  run  down  with 
weary  nights  and  so  much  anxiety,"  and  again  "  John  is 
weary,  weary  weary."  No  wonder  that  in  such  a  year 
but  one  week  of  boat-work  was  secured. 

With  1879  ^  change  set  in,  and  henceforth  twelve  weeks 
is  the  yearly  average  of  time  devoted  to  work  upon  the 
Nile,  an  average  almost  double  that  of  the  previous  period. 

The  plan  agreed  to  at  the  meeting  of  Association  in  the 
spring  of  1879  had  been  that  Dr.  Hogg  should  spend  the 
first  three  months  of  the  summer  in  Ramleh  with  entire 
charge  of  the  theologues.  But  before  he  had  set  his  face 
northward,  a  document  reached  him  requesting  his  pres- 
ence at  Ekhmim,  a  town  in  the  south  that  had  previously 
kept  its  doors  closed  against  all  mission  work.  As  the 
document  ended  with  a  long  list  of  signatures  that  in- 
cluded the  names  of  all  the  influential  Copts  of  the  place, 
the  event  seemed  little  short  of  miraculous.  How  could 
he  pass  it  by?  Why  not  teach  his  class  at  Ekhmim  in- 
stead of  Ramleh,  and  so  combine  the  appointment  of 
Association  with  what  appealed  to  him  and  would  surely 
appeal  eventually  to  all,  as  the  appointment  of  God? 

On  this  idea  he  immediately  acted,  and  the  experiences 
of  the  summer  made  upon  the  theologues  an  impression  so 
ineffaceable  that  the  tale  is  recounted  to-day  with  a  vivid- 
ness difficult  to  reproduce  in  the  printed  page.  For  even 
before  the  *'  Ibis  "  had  reached  her  meorings  beside  the 


THE  "  SIEGE  "  OF  EKHMIM  227 

high  bank  whose  dust  the  hot  winds  sifted  daily  over  the 
boat  and  her  contents,  the  great  door  wide  and  effectual 
that  had  invited  the  missionary  to  enter,  was  slammed 
deftly  in  his  face.  The  priests,  alarmed  at  the  dimensions 
to  which  the  disaffection  of  their  flock  had  grown,  and 
willing  for  any  compromise  that  might  keep  Protestant- 
ism at  bay,  had  set  themselves  with  every  art  and  craft 
available  to  win  back  the  leaders.  They  had  succeeded. 
On  Dr.  Hogg's  arrival  three  men  ventured  timidly  to  the 
boat, — no  more ;  and  whenever  he  showed  his  face  in  the 
streets  a  hooting  mob  of  boys  gathered  at  this  heels,  who 
boasted  loudly  that  they  would  drive  him  out  of  their 
town  as  they  had  driven  some  previous  visitant  on  a 
similar  errand.  The  students  shared  his  fate,  being  es- 
corted back  and  forth  from  the  inn  in  which  they  lodged 
by  a  band  of  youngsters,  sometimes  a  hundred  strong,  who 
vied  with  Gideon's  braves  in  the  clatter  they  produced 
with  broken  pottery,  and  the  noise  of  their  lusty  chant — 
"  Death  seize  you,  and  spare  your  tarbooshes !  Death 
seize  you  and  spare  your  tarbooshes." 

Dr.  Hogg  seems  to  have  been  in  no  way  discouraged 
by  the  turn  events  had  taken.  He  writes  of  the  place  as 
"  A  needy  field  ready  to  be  opened  but  requiring  every 
preparation  for  a  lengthened  occupation  before  any  re- 
sponse will  be  given  to  the  overtures  made  by  us,"  and 
he  felt  the  essential  to  be  that  he  stay  "  long  enough  to 
gather  such  a  nucleus  of  resolute  spirits  together  into 
a  compact  body,  that  the  gates  of  Hades  shall  not  prevail 
against  them." 

The  young  men  could  not  at  once  understand  his  atti- 
tude. They  were  indignant  that  their  leader  should  have 
been  befooled,  cordially  invited  to  come  and  heaped  with 
dishonour  on  his  arrival,  and  they  expected  him  to  turn 
his  back  on  a  people  that  had  mocked  him,  shaking  the 


228     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

dust  off  his  feet  as  a  testimony  against  them.  Instead  they 
heard  with  amazement  that  he  wished  to  rent  a  house. 
The  news  spread  at  once  through  the  town  and  rents 
were  raised  to  prohibitive  prices,  but  a  small  place  was 
at  last  discovered,  built  of  sun-dried  brick  and  worth 
half  a  dollar  a  month  that  might  be  secured  at  six  times 
its  value.  "  Rent  it,"  said  the  missionary.  "  But  it  will 
take  twenty  dollars  to  repair  it,"  the  students  expostu- 
lated. "  I  will  pay  it,"  was  the  answer,  and  they  deemed 
him  mad. 

The  house  was  chiefly  court,  and  in  this  court  they 
met  for  worship,  the  preacher  seated  on  a  broken  water- 
pot,  while  on  the  ground  sat  the  only  audience  who  cared 
or  dared  to  attend, — his  students  and  three  men  too  poor 
to  lose  much  in  the  venture.  Overlooking  them  on  the 
roof  women  gathered,  women  used  to  seclusion  but  pre- 
pared to  outrage  custom  in  a  zeal  not  according  to  knowl- 
edge. They  came  not  to  listen  but  to  peer  down  at  the 
"  wolves  "  below,  and  fire  curses  on  their  head,  hideous 
curses  coming  from  women's  lips.  But  the  curses  seemed 
strangely  innocuous,  and  the  service  proceeded.  More 
tangible  missiles  were  then  substituted,  dirt,  brick,  any- 
thing available ;  but  these  too  failed  of  their  purpose,  the 
audience  shifting  to  a  position  out  of  range,  and  worship 
continuing  uninterrupted. 

Would  the  man  now  see  his  folly?  Not  he.  "  Send  us 
your  boys,"  he  said  to  the  men,  "  and  we  will  start  a 
school " ;  while  to  his  students  he  explained,  "  This  is 
just  the  ringing  of  the  bell  and  later  the  audience  will 
come,"  and  he  had  not  forgotten  that  in  Egypt  some  time 
elapses  after  the  bell  has  rung  before  the  people  gather. 

In  the  interval  benches  must  be  prepared  for  them. 
But  the  Bishop's  ban  was  on  all  who  should  help  the 
intruders,  and  carpenters  were  hard  to  hire.     They  de- 


W  4 

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,  .*          *     "*. 

lfij4dk 

Im^w 

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Market  on  Outskirts  ni  VilkiMc 


Typical  Group  of  Fellahin 


Market  Day 
VILLACK    SCKXES 


THE  "  SIEGE  "  OF  EKHMIM  229 

manded  sixty  cents  a  day  instead  of  twenty,  and  the 
students  stared  as  their  teacher  accepted  the  terms 
What  did  the  man  expect  ?  Why  throw  away  time,  effort, 
money  in  a  vain  attempt  ?  "  Strange !  strange — his  faith !  " 

But  they  were  still  more  deeply  impressed  when  they 
began  to  realise  at  what  cost  the  money  was  secured  to 
bombard  Ekhmim's  closed  gates.  The  ties  between 
teacher  and  taught  were  such  that  his  family  interests 
were  not  unshared,  and  they  had  heard  with  sympathetic 
pleasure  of  a  projected  visit  to  Scotland  and  its  purpose. 
Dr.  Hogg's  eldest  son  in  completing  his  course  at  Dollar 
Academy  distinguished  himself  by  winning  four  medals 
and  thirteen  first  prizes,  a  multiplicity  of  honours  un- 
precedented in  the  history  of  the  institution.  The  family 
had  not  been  united  for  three  years,  and  while  a  reunion 
was  at  present  too  expensive  a  luxury  to  contemplate, 
they  had  decided  to  stretch  their  purse  strings  to  the 
extent  of  enabling  the  father  to  witness  his  boy's  triumph. 
The  students  now  learned  that  the  project  had  been 
abandoned.  To  go  to  Scotland  would  not  only  curtail  the 
campaign  at  Ekhmim ;  it  would  cripple  its  resources, 
for  it  was  of  necessity  a  private  venture,  having  found 
no  place  in  any  mission  estimate.  The  missionary  had 
remitted  the  matter  to  his  wife  for  decision,  and  her 
answer — "  Whatsoever  He  saith  unto  you,  do  it " — set- 
tled the  question. 

The  few  letters  written  during  the  siege  give  no  sug- 
gestion of  anything  heroic  in  this  sacrifice.  "  You  do 
know,"  writes  the  mother  to  her  sister,  "  how  to  make  it 
hard  for  John  to  resist  the  temptation  to  go  home.  But 
duty  first,  there's  the  rub," — and  with  that  the  subject  is 
dismissed.  A  few  facts  of  daily  life  filter  through  in  an 
accidental  way.  The  cook,  inexperienced  but  willing,  has 
at  last  learned  to  make  soup.     The  plague  of  flies  has 


230     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

been  put  to  flight  by  a  plague  of  strong  wind.  The  heat 
is  "quite  bearable,"  113°  under  the  awning  of  the  deck 
(the  missionary's  study).  He  can  use  his  eyes  "now" 
without  pain.  When  his  wife  joins  him  she  is  somewhat 
perplexed  as  to  how  to  whet  the  family  appetite,  as  the 
market  provides  nothing  but  tough  buffalo-meat  and  a 
few  wild  pigeons ;  no  vegetables, — not  even  potatoes ;  no 
fruit, — not  even  lemons.  But  "  John's  health  is  better,  as 
he  has  neither  reports  nor  statistics  and  few  Arabic  let- 
ters to  write,"  and  a  change  of  mooring  at  last  brings 
partial  respite  from  the  swirling  dust.  Besides  even 
opposition  has  its  compensations,  and  the  absence  of 
visitors  at  night  makes  possible  some  ideals  of  family 
life  long  remitted  to  dreamland,  quiet  evenings  when 
one  reads  aloud  and  the  other  listens  and  enjoys,  while 
the  moon  showers  silver  on  the  waters,  and  tremulous 
wavelets  lap  around  the  river-home  and  ripple  to  the 
shore. 

The  small  meetings  were,  however,  a  nightly  trial,  for 
"  after  weltering  through  a  hot  day  one  wants  something 
inspiring."  Yet  Dr.  Hogg  refused  to  cater  to  the 
men  who  had  desired  his  presence  by  preaching  against 
the  corruptions  of  the  Coptic  Church  as  they  had  desired, 
preferring,  he  said,  "  to  preach  Christ,  and  to  teach  people 
to  hate  their  own  sins  rather  than  to  hate  their  priests," 
however  small  an  audience  might  be  tempted  by  such 
fare.  His  method  and  his  faith  were  fully  justified,  and 
before  the  disbanding  of  the  class  at  the  three  months' 
close,  when  the  missionary  turned  his  attention  to  the 
needs  of  other  stations,  the  work  at  Ekhmim  had  been  es- 
tablished on  a  permanent  basis,  with  a  school  whose  daily 
attendance  numbered  from  eighty  to  ninety  pupils,  under 
the  management  of  two  efficient  teachers,  and  an  audience 
of  some  sixty  souls  gathering  to  listen  nightly  to  the  sim- 


AT  MINYA  231 

pie  truths  of  the  Gospel,  over  whom  within  three  years  a 
native  pastor  was  ordained. 

The  following  year  a  similar  campaign  was  conducted 
at  Minya,  a  prosperous  town  midway  between  Assiut  and 
Cairo.  It  was  a  centre  at  which  Dr.  Hogg  had  urged  the 
location  of  a  missionary  as  early  as  1867,  but  Monsurah 
had  been  chosen  instead.  No  internal  dissension  but  a 
genuine  hunger  for  truth  prompted  the  request  that 
brought  the  missionary  to  the  field  of  action,  and  on  his 
arrival  the  boat  was  crowded  night  after  night  with 
earnest,  intelligent  young  men,  who  listened  with  rapt  at- 
tention to  teachings  on  the  fundamentals  of  Christian 
faith,  and  of  the  life  hid  with  Christ  in  God.  Dr.  Hogg 
thought  he  had  never  had  so  attractive  an  audience  at  a 
new  station.  Precautions  had  been  taken  to  rent  a  house 
before  his  arrival,  and  it  was  well,  for  opposition  soon 
awoke.  One  of  the  most  bigoted  Copts  held  a  high  posi- 
tion in  the  government,  and  his  threats  were  more  ef- 
fective than  the  Coptic  Bishop's  curses.  Subordinate 
officials  who  dared  frequent  the  meeting-house  faced  the 
danger  of  instant  dismissal  from  their  posts,  artisans  ran 
the  risk  of  a  sudden  rise  in  their  taxes,  while  those  be- 
neath the  range  of  such  arrows  might  suffer  a  beating  or 
imprisonment  under  false  pretexts.  But  the  meetings 
continued  with  unfailing  regularity  even  when  the  audi- 
ence numbered  but  two,  and  though  soldiers  guarded  the 
lanes,  the  attendance  gradually  rallied,  few  but  the  poor- 
est however  venturing  to  appear. 

One  night  a  gale  blew  and  a  choking  dust  fog  filled  the 
air.  The  captain  protested  when  the  missionary  stepped 
ashore.  "  Ya,  khawaja,*  it  is  a  night  like  pitch.  No  one 
will  expect  you."  "  There  will  be  more  than  usual,"  was 
the  reply.    And  he  was  right.    Under  cover  of  the  storm 

*  Oh,  sir. 


232     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

fifty  had  gathered.  When  at  lo  p.m.  the  speaker  resumed 
his  seat,  watches  were  pulled  out.  "  It  is  still  early,"  the 
men  pleaded,  and  after  a  slight  breathing  spell  the  willing 
preacher  launched  on  a  second  discourse. 

When  the  persecutors  had  committed  a  few  glaring 
indiscretions.  Dr.  Hogg  changed  his  tactics,  and  used  his 
influence  where  such  influence  had  power.  By  a  cir- 
cuitous route,  the  surest  road  in  such  cases,  it  reached 
the  government  official,  a  Moslem  superior,  warning  him 
that  it  would  be  to  his  interest  to  mind  his  own  business 
and  let  the  Coptic  hierarchy  fight  their  own  battles.  The 
hint  was  sufficient  and  the  current  of  religious  inquiry 
was  allowed  henceforth  to  flow  undisturbed. 

Lectures  on  the  life  of  Christ  were  the  nightly  food 
provided,  the  meeting  usually  lasting  from  8:30  to  11, 
though  Dr.  Hogg  had  already  spent  four  hours  in  close 
work  with  his  theologues,  and  visitors  had  used  much  of 
his  time.  He  was  to  be  in  charge  of  Alexandria  station 
from  July  to  October  and  was  to  take  two  weeks'  rest 
before  entering  on  the  new  task,  but  his  holiday  was 
freely  dispensed  with  as  he  could  not  bear  to  leave  Minya 
one  day  sooner  than  was  needful.  Students  and  teacher 
worked  on  Saturdays  to  finish  more  rapidly  the  prescribed 
course,  and  thus  secure  for  the  missionary  a  few  unin- 
terrupted weeks  in  which  to  devote  his  whole  strength  to 
the  starting  of  a  school.  In  educational  work  he  believed 
strongly  in  the  power  of  proper  equipment ;  and  an 
abundance  of  benches,  tables,  and  maps,  a  blackboard  and 
the  indispensable  modulator  to  teach  the  art  of  song,  were 
in  the  absence  of  mission  funds  all  provided  at  his  own  ex- 
pense, without  a  misgiving  as  to  the  success  of  his  venture. 
When  he  launched  on  his  enterprise  and  but  three  small 
boys  appeared,  he  devoted  himself  to  them  as  heartily  as 
if  they  had  been  thirty,  regarding  them  as  Elijah  re- 


AT  MINYA  233 

gardcd  his  cloudlet  in  the  west.  In  twelve  days  they 
numbered  eighteen,  all  small  however,  and  he  threw  his 
energies  into  teaching  the  two  teachers  he  had  engaged 
how  to  tackle  their  work,  teaching  before  them,  beginning 
each  lesson  to  show  its  method,  then  delivering  to  one 
of  them  the  book  while  he  remained  at  hand  ready  with 
hints,  help,  and  encouragement,  for  on  these  teachers 
would  rest  the  responsibility  for  the  future, — a  future  of 
which  he  entertained  as  little  doubt  as  though  the  boys 
of  the  town  were  already  crowding  to  the  doors. 
"  Strange — his  faith  !  "  But  it  was  justified.  The  school 
whose  foundation  was  so  carefully  laid  prospered  as  it 
deserved,  and  before  twelve  months  had  passed  its  in- 
come was  such  as  to  cover  all  expenses. 

Through  the  winter  that  followed  Dr.  Hogg's  desire  to 
be  out  amongst  the  churches  grew  if  possible  more  acute. 
"  How  I  long  to  be  free  from  all  other  work,"  he  wrote, 
"  and  permitted  to  spend  my  whole  time  and  strength 
in  watering  the  seed  that  has  been  planted !  Yet  even 
were  this  possible,  what  could  one  man  do  among  thirty 
stations  (in  Upper  Egypt  alone)  scattered  over  an  area 
400  miles  long?"  He  once  more  turned  to  the  American 
Church,  the  gist  of  his  message  being  "  Double  your  force. 
Without  twenty  picked  men  of  the  first  order  we  cannot 
begin  the  work  of  the  Delta  or  control  the  work  in  the 
South.  It  is  not  the  number  but  the  type  of  the  churches 
planted  that  is  of  primary  importance,  but  our  shortage 
in  men  is  endangering  the  type." 

For  two  years  he  had  noted  with  growing  anxiety  a 
tendency  among  the  converts  everywhere  to  leave  to  their 
paid  agents  the  privilege  of  striving  to  spread  the  good 
news  of  the  Kingdom.  How  could  such  a  Church  evangel- 
ise Egypt?  Only  a  Church  in  the  life  of  whose  private 
members  Christ  appeared  re-incarnate,  could  convince  the 


234     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

Moslem  world  that  God  was  incarnate  in  Christ  Jesus. 
The  fear  haunted  him  at  times  that  they  who  assisted  at 
the  birth  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  Egypt  were  to  be 
doomed  to  see  it  sink  in  its  childhood  into  a  living  death 
for  want  of  needful  nursing. 

An  effort  had  been  made  at  the  Presbytery  meeting 
of  1880,  after  much  prayer  and  conference,  to  inaugurate 
a  movement  towards  organising  aggressive  work  in  every 
congregation  however  small,  the  volunteer  workers  to  be 
taught,  helped,  and  led  by  the  agents  in  charge.  Dr.  Hogg 
meanwhile  put  much  study  and  thought  into  the  prepara- 
tion of  weekly  Sabbath  School  lesson-helps,  planning  them 
in  such  a  way  that  each  leaflet  would  provide  suggestive 
material  for  a  daily  study-hour,  and  guide  the  inexperi- 
enced in  their  attempts  to  interest  others.  Though  the 
plan  had  been  warmly  approved  by  all  the  pastors  and 
elders  present,  yet  on  scattering  they  lacked  the  power 
to  set  it  in  motion,  and  as  no  one  was  free  to  help  them 
the  year  passed  without  apparent  improvement.  Again 
the  Presbytery  spent  nights  in  prayer  and  conference  on 
the  subject,  and  it  was  suggested  that  when  pastors  and 
elders  separated  to  their  homes  they  should  arrange  to 
hold  similar  conventions  in  different  towns,  at  which  the 
church  members  could  be  present,  to  stir  each  other  up 
to  deeper  consecration  and  earnestness.  Once  more  the 
plan  proposed  was  warmly  approved,  and  once  more  for 
lack  of  power  to  execute  it,  failed  of  its  purpose. 

At  the  meeting  of  Association  Dr.  Hogg  urged  the 
need  (felt  surely  by  all)  of  a  more  personal  assistance  to 
the  native  leaders.  Two  experienced  missionaries,  he 
claimed,  should  be  permanently  freed  from  every  re- 
sponsibility except  the  care  of  the  churches,  one  to  visit 
between  Assiut  and  Cairo,  one  between  Assiut  and  Assuan. 
If  this  were  a  counsel  of  perfection,  let  one  at  least  be 


FIVE  MONTHS  ON  THE  NILE  g35 

set  apart  to  the  work.  He  himself  would  willingly  give 
up  his  connection  with  Assiut  and  the  College — the  Semi- 
nary too  if  need  be,  unless  the  theologues  could  accompany 
him — and  do  all  that  was  in  one  man's  power  to  grapple 
with  the  call  of  the  hour. 

Serious  practical  difficulties  stood  in  the  way  of  the 
project,  and  its  only  outcome  was  five  months  spent  on 
the  Nile,  during  but  three  of  which  he  was  free  for  the 
special  work  required. 

It  was  an  arduous  tour.  At  Ekhmim  he  spent  six  days, 
finding  much  to  set  in  order.  Peace  was  successfully 
restored  and  the  first  Communion  service  held.  At  Suhaj 
he  remained  long  enough  to  aid  the  reform  party  in  or- 
ganising a  school,  and  at  Minya  he  spent  four  weeks 
amid  a  rising  tide  of  interest,  marked  Sabbath  by  Sab- 
bath by  the  increased  attendance,  80 — 100 — 180 — 230. 

But  to  secure  these  longer  visits  he  was  forced  else- 
where to  spend  only  a  day,  while  to  ensure  permanent 
results  he  would  have  considered  a  period  of  eight  days 
advisable.  Each  day  was  therefore  filled  to  its  utmost 
capacity.  Visitors  lingered  late  into  the  night,  and 
usually  by  sunrise  the  dahabieh  had  reached  a  new  village 
to  find  a  new  group  of  village  friends  awaiting  her  arrival. 
At  times  his  brain  was  so  tired  that  it  almost  refused  to 
work,  but  at  the  demand  of  circumstances  he  drove  it  on. 
"  Biliousness  can't  outlive  a  hard  preaching  bout,"  was 
his  theory,  and  time  and  again  he  proved  the  truth  of  his 
adage ;  but  the  biliousness  when  brought  to  so  violent  an 
end  was  apt  to  rise  from  its  grave  with  unabated  vigour 
before  many  days  had  passed.  "  How  John  drives  and 
drags  through  it  all  I  do  not  know,"  wrote  his  wife,  "  but 
I  suppose  he  is  wearing  himself  out  sooner  than  he  should 
by  working  his  brain  so  hard." 

For  the  last  two  months  he  was  forced  to  moor  his  boat 


236     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

at  Cairo  in  order  to  share  with  the  missionaries  at  that  sta- 
tion in  the  teaching  of  the  theologues,  and  though  such 
an  arrangement  involved  a  concentration  of  the  mission- 
ary force  that  chafed  his  spirit,  it  was  no  doubt  a  blessing 
in  disguise  to  his  over-wrought  frame. 

The  Mohammedan  problem  which  was  increasingly  en- 
gaging his  attention  was  one  of  his  studies  with  the  theo- 
logical class  at  this  time.  Disguised  under  the  title, 
"  Neither  is  there  salvation  in  any  other,"  it  became  the 
subject  of  a  book  which  he  brought  out  the  following 
winter, — a  volume  of  historic  interest,  its  printing  poor, 
its  paper  poorer,  its  cutting  and  binding  the  poorest,  but 
worthy  to  be  remembered  and  treasured  as  the  first  book 
ever  printed  in  Upper  Egypt.  It  was  this  great  problem 
of  Islam  that  gave  its  unique  importance  to  the  other 
subject  which  throughout  these  years  had  so  occupied 
his  thoughts,  the  type  of  Church  which  Christ  desired 
for  the  accomplishment  of  His  great  purposes,  and  how 
such  a  type  of  Church  could  best  be  produced.  With 
reflections  on  this  subject  the  correspondence  of  the  period 
teems,  and  a  few  selections  may  fittingly  close  its  history. 

"I  believe  the  millennium  is  now  (nay,  has  been  al- 
ways) within  the  reach  of  the  evangelistic  labours  of 
one  generation  of  Christians,  who  have  learned,  like  Paul, 
to  live  '  not  to  themselves  but  to  Him  who  died  for  them 
and  rose  again.'  I  believe  also  that  this  will  be  accom- 
plished only  when  pastors  learn  that  their  duty  is  not 
only  to  feed  the  flock,  but  to  see  to  it  that  each  member 
is  put  to  his  proper  work  and  kept  at  it." 

Summary  of  a  pastoral  letter  addressed  to  Assiut  con- 
gregation.    Subject:  "Saved  in  order  to  serve." 

"  The  work  for  which  the  Church  exists  is  that  for 
which  the  Son  of  God  became  incarnate.    '  As  Thou  hast 


THE  TYPE  OF  CHURCH  237 

sent  me  into  the  world  even  so  have  I  also  sent  them 
into  the  world.'  Christ's  work  was  not  completed  by 
His  incarnation,  but  was  only  then  begun.  Your  work 
is  not  completed  when  you  take  to  yourselves  a  bodily 
form  as  an  organised  congregation,  it  is  only  begun. 
'  The  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but 
to  minister  and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many.'  This 
is  precisely  your  calling  as  an  organised  body  of  be- 
lievers. Though  you  support  your  pastor  and  wait  faith- 
fully on  his  ministrations,  you  but  prepare  yourselves 
for  beginning  to  fulfil  this  calling.  You  are  but  being 
ministered  unto.  If  you  rest  content  with  this  you  have 
no  right  to  exist,  and  are  nothing  better  than  cumberers 
of  the  ground  which  you  cover." 

To  Rev.  James  Henry,  Melbourne,  Australia: 

"  I  believe  that  every  congregation  of  Christian  adults 
ought  to  meet  three  times  a  week  at  least — once  to  learn 
what  is  duty  (a  preaching  service)  ;  once  to  ask  for  grace 
to  do  it  (a  prayer  meeting)  ;  and  once  to  hear  the  report 
of  what  has  been  done  and  to  plan  for  the  future  (a 
missionary  service).  All  the  work  of  the  congregation 
ought  to  be  carried  on  under  the  direction  of  the  Ses- 
sion. The  Pastor  and  his  elders  would  thus  be  some- 
what equivalent  to  a  general  and  his  staff — leading  the 
hosts  of  light  out  against  the  hosts  of  darkness." 

To  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen : 

"  I  have  always  felt  that  the  ultimate  success  of  our 
work  in  a  missionary  point  of  view  will  depend  not  so 
much  on  the  number  as  on  the  nature  of  the  churches 
gathered  or  planted  by  us.  Already,  in  Upper  Egypt, 
we  have  at  least  the  nuclei  of  as  many  churches  as  arc 
needed  to  evangelise  the  whole  of  the  Thebaid,  provided 
the  '  salt '  retains  '  its  savour  '  and  the  '  leaven  '  is  propa- 
gative,  as  by  nature  it  ought  to  be.  H,  however,  the 
members  of  our  native  Church  cannot  be  trained  to  take 
a  heartier  and  more  serious  interest  in  Christian  work, 


238     THE  CARE  OF  ALL  THE  CHURCHES 

than  Is  the  case  with  most  of  them  at  present,  then — as 
I  solemnly  assured  them  wherever  I  went, — although 
the  thirty  stations  in  the  Thebaid  were  increased  to 
three  hundred  to-morrow,  the  ultimate  Christianisation 
of  Upper  Egypt  would  be  no  nearer  than  it  is  to-day. 
Not  that  our  converts  in  Egypt  are  less  fruitful  in  Chris- 
tian effort  than  the  majority  of  their  brethren  in  Scot- 
land. Such  is  far  from  being  the  case :  but  both  here 
and  at  home  the  growth  of  '  Christ's  '  Kingdom  is  checked 
and  thwarted  by  the  failure  of  His  subjects  to  realise 
that  the  very  thing  in  which  the  great  difference  lies 
between  them  and  other  men  is  this — that  others  live 
to  themselves,  while  they  live  '  not  to  themselves  but  to 
Him  who  died  for  them  and  rose  again.'  Oh,  for  an 
Evangelistic  Baptism  all  over  the  Church !  Then  in  one 
short  generation  would  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  be- 
come the  Kingdom  of  the  Lord  and  of  His  Christ." 


XV 

ARABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

The  question  is  What  will  it  next  do  [the  Revolution]  ; 
how  will  it  henceforth  shape  itself  ?  .  .  .  As  a  thing  with- 
out order,  a  thing  proceeding  from  beyond  and  beneath 
the  region  of  order,  it  must  work  and  welter,  not  as  a 
Regularity,  but  as  a  Chaos;  destructive  and  self-destruc- 
tive; always  until  something  arise  strong  enough  to  bind 
it  into  subjection  again.  Which  something,  we  may  further 
conjecture,  will  not  be  a  Formula,  with  philosophic  proposi- 
tions and  forensic  eloquence,  but  a  Reality,  probably  with 
a  sword  in  its  hand. 

— Carlyle:  French  Revolution. 

WE  now  approach  the  story  of  a  year  that  has 
left  a  deep  impress  on  the  history  of  Egypt 
and  on  the  memory  of  all  who  were  swept 
along  in  the  current  of  its  political  events. 

The  Arabi  rebellion  of  1882  influenced  strongly  the 
remainder  of  Dr.  Hogg's  life,  not  only  because  it  inci- 
dentally condemned  him  to  three  years  of  bachelordom, 
but  because  it  affected  permanently  the  interests  he  had 
most  at  heart. 

It  affected  the  Evangelical  Church  that  was  so  largely 
of  his  planting.  He  wished  for  her  a  baptism  of  power, 
and  new  power  came  through  a  baptism  of  suffering. 

It  affected  the  Coptic  Church  that  he  longed  to  see  re- 
generated. The  fiery  trial  that  assailed  without  dis- 
crimination all  who  were  beyond  the  bounds  of  Islam 
burned  away  barriers  of  suspicion  and  hatred  through 

239 


S40  ARABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

which  she  viewed  her  Protestant  sister,  and  brought  into 
full  view  their  common  Christianity. 

It  affected  the  unreached  millions  of  Islam  of  whom 
twenty  years  before  Dr.  Hogg  had  written,  "  There  is 
little  hope  of  a  Christian  missionary's  gaining  a  hearing 
amongst  them  until  some  political  upheaval  shall  force 
upon  them  the  unwelcome  truth  that  the  Mohammedan 
races  are  no  longer  the  world's  conquerors."  Such  an 
upheaval  now  took  place  and  new  possibilities  emerged. 

For  years  the  forces  of  revolution  had  been  slowly 
marshalling  for  combat.  When  in  June,  1879,  Ismail 
Pasha,  deposed  by  the  Sultan,  handed  over  to  his  son 
the  reins  of  Khedivial  government,  he  burdened  him  with 
a  legacy  from  which  a  stronger  man  than  he  might  well 
have  shrunk.  He  ceded  to  him  a  country  loaded  by  debt, 
her  foreign  creditors  greedy  of  high  interest,  her  people 
groaning  under  oppression,  her  army  awakened  to  a  sense 
of  its  power,  and  in  her  capital  a  band  of  unscrupulous 
men  ready  under  the  guise  of  patriotism  to  turn  the  pop- 
ular discontent  and  the  army's  new-born  consciousness  to 
their  own  advantage. 

These  were  serious  elements  for  such  a  man  as  Tewfik 
Pasha  to  handle.  He  was  a  sincere  and  kindly  soul  of  do- 
mestic tastes,  interested  in  education  and  agriculture,  de- 
voted to  religion,  anxious  for  his  country's  welfare  and 
loyal  to  her  allies.  He  lacked  the  virtues  and  the  vices 
that  enable  a  man  to  keep  the  upper  hand  in  turbulent 
times. 

Ismail  had  before  him  in  every  crisis  one  clear  issue, 
"  What  course  of  action  will  further  my  immediate  in- 
terests ?  "  Burdened  by  no  scruples  as  to  right  and  wrong, 
decision  was  easy  to  him,  while  his  extraordinary  shrewd- 
ness, his  personal  charm,  his  strong  will,  and  his  power  of 
managing  men,  were  tremendous  assets   in  controlling 


DEMANDS  OF  THE  ARMY  241 

events  to  his  own  advantage.  He  moved  forward  with- 
out hesitation. 

To  the  son  the  situation  was  more  comphcated.  He 
was  no  diplomat  and  prompt  decision  was  not  his  forte. 
Unhke  his  father  he  was  wiUing  to  Hsten  to  duty's  call, 
but  he  was  often  unable  to  distinguish  it,  his  eye  dazed  by 
the  magnitude  of  the  issue,  his  ears  deafened  by  the 
clamour  of  conflicting  claims.  Where  Ismail  acted, 
Tewfik  deliberated  and  asked  advice. 

The  first  overt  act  of  rebellion  took  place  in  February, 
1881,  twenty  months  after  his  accession,  when  during  the 
trial  by  court  martial  of  three  colonels,  the  soldiery  in 
obedience  to  previous  instructions  from  the  culprits  broke 
into  the  council  chamber  of  the  palace,  and  knocking  over 
tables  and  chairs  seized  their  officers  and  demanded  the 
dismissal  of  the  minister  of  war.  The  o&encQ  passed 
unpunished  and  their  demand  was  granted. 

A  more  spectacular  incident  occurred  seven  months 
later  when  Arabi,  one  of  the  reinstated  colonels,  at  the 
head  of  his  regiment  demanded  of  the  Khedive  a  change 
of  ministry,  a  constitution,  and  the  increase  of  the  army  to 
18,000  men.  The  soldiers  evinced  little  interest  in  the 
proceedings,  but  filling  the  square  before  Abdin  Palace 
and  awaiting  their  officer's  command,  they  presented  a 
formidable  appearance  to  the  man  who,  though  Khedive 
of  Egypt,  could  not  guarantee  the  loyalty  even  of  his 
body  guard.  Conciliation  once  more  seemed  the  only 
chance  of  averting  bloodshed,  and  after  prolonged  ne- 
gotiation the  first  demand  (a  change  of  ministry)  was 
granted,  the  remainder  were  remitted  to  Constantinople 
for  decision,  and  the  soldiery  dispersed  more  assured 
than  ever  of  their  power  to  rule  the  land. 

From  that  moment  the  plot  thickened  by  sure  degrees, 
and   events   were   watched   with   acute    interest   by   the 


242  ARABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

European  creditors  of  Egypt.  Surely  in  no  other  country 
in  the  world  could  so  complicated  a  situation  have  ex- 
isted ! 

The  Khedive  though  helpless  was  nominally  indepen- 
dent. The  Sultan  as  tribute-master  was  nominal  liege- 
lord.  Britain  and  France  were  nominally  exercising  a 
dual  control.  Four  other  European  powers  as  co-credi- 
tors held  secondary  rights  of  consideration,  and  twelve 
had  treaty  privileges  to  be  safeguarded.  How  could  so 
nondescript  a  regiment  keep  step  and  move  effectively? 
No  wonder  that  threats  and  explanations  took  the  place 
of  prompt  action,  and  ultimatum  followed  ultimatum  till 
they  became  the  laughing  stock  of  the  land.  By  February, 
1882,  Mahmud  Sami,  arch-intriguer  in  a  movement  falsely 
called  national,  had  succeeded  in  creating  a  situation  that 
forced  Sharif  to  resign,  and  had  installed  himself  as 
prime  minister  in  Sharif's  stead,  with  Arabi  the  tool  and 
nominal  leader  of  his  choice  as  minister  of  war. 

Four  months  later  came  the  final  crisis  when  in  June, 
1882,  Dervish  Pasha,  the  High  Commissioner  of  Turkey, 
who  had  arrived  upon  the  scene  to  restore  order,  threw 
aside  the  policy  of  conciliation  and  treated  the  rebel  lead- 
ers with  scant  consideration.  Carefully  concealing  their 
hand,  they  retaliated  with  a  blow  that  brought  him  to  his 
knees.  At  a  crucial  moment  news  reached  the  palace  that 
in  Alexandria  a  massacre  of  Europeans  was  raging  and 
that  the  troops  stationed  in  that  city  refused  to  interfere 
until  they  should  receive  definite  orders  from  their  chief. 
Arabi  was  notified.  "  Let  Dervish  Pasha  come  himself 
and  ask  me,"  was  the  answer.  He  did,  and  the  massacre 
ceased  as  suddenly  as  it  had  begun ;  but  Arabi  Pasha 
henceforth  held  Egypt  under  his  sway. 

Even  at  this  juncture  France  clung  to  a  neutral  attitude, 
but  Britain  had  too  many  interests  at  stake  in  Egypt  to 


FLIGHT  FROM  ALEXANDRIA  243 

forbear  action  further,  and  a  war  followed,  short  and 
decisive. 

Three  days  after  the  massacre  Dr.  Hogg  and  a  few 
others  were  closeted  in  the  mission  house  in  Alexandria, 
discussing  the  situation  in  its  bearing  upon  their  families 
then  living  in  Ramleh,  when  a  message  came  from  the 
consul  urging  that  all  women  and  children  should  be 
conveyed  to  an  American  warship  in  the  harbour,  and  dis- 
claiming all  responsibility  for  their  protection  should  this 
precaution  be  neglected.  Almost  immediately  a  strange 
confused  hum  made  itself  heard,  and  the  men  adjourned 
hurriedly  to  the  roof  to  discover  its  cause.  The  narrow 
streets  had  filled  with  sudden  activity,  and  from  every 
door  men  hurried  out  impelled  by  some  common  motive. 
Was  another  massacre  afoot?  Had  their  warning  come 
too  late?  Would  they  reach  Ramleh  in  safety,  and  if  so 
would  they  be  able  to  place  their  families  in  safety  when 
they  reached  them? 

The  short  journey  was  accomplished  without  mishap, 
and  when  the  party  entered  the  little  compound  at  Ramleh 
discussion  was  short  and  pointed.  "  Can  you  leave  at 
once  ?  "  "  Impossible,"  "  Then  pray  God  the  line  be  not 
cut  before  we  reach  town."  Hurried  preparations  fol- 
lowed with  few  words,  and  an  hour  later  the  houses  were 
left  chaotic,  and  men,  women,  and  children,  carrying  babies 
or  holding  bundles  of  necessaries  in  their  hands,  stood  on 
a  platform  wondering  anxiously  if  the  train  would  come 
or  what  fate  awaited  them  in  the  city.  The  train  arrived 
already  crowded  with  similar  companies  of  every  nation- 
ality similarly  marked  by  tokens  of  haste  and  anxiety. 
But  when  Alexandria  was  reached  all  was  quiet.  The 
commotion  had  died  away  as  mysteriously  as  it  had 
awakened.  The  city  was  like  a  city  of  death,  with  shut- 
tered shops  and  silent  streets,  few  men  and  no  women 


244.  ARABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

visible.  Here  and  there  a  soldier  might  be  seen  loitering 
at  a  corner,  or  a  few  gamblers  who  played  with  dice 
some  game  of  chance,  as  Arabi  and  his  compeers  were 
playing  with  higher  stakes  at  the  capital  the  game  of 
personal  ambition. 

The  American  warship  "  Galena  "  was  gained  in  safety, 
almost  every  yard  of  deck  already  occupied  with  huddled 
refugees.  Here  the  mission  party  were  hospitably  housed 
and  from  time  to  time  new  relays  joined  them  from  in- 
land stations,  while  the  gentlemen  made  excursions  to  the 
desolate  houses  at  Ramleh  to  complete  their  preparations 
for  prolonged  absence,  and  wives  watched  anxiously  for 
their  return,  wondering  what  dangers  might  be  lurking  in 
that  sleeping  town  and  counting  the  slow  hours  till 
evening. 

Orders  having  been  received  from  the  British  Admiral 
to  the  effect  that  refugees  lodging  in  the  harbour  should 
be  conveyed  to  safer  ports  by  whatever  form  of  trans- 
port should  first  offer,  a  party  of  forty  sailed  on  June  21 
aboard  the  "  Falernian,"  thirty  of  whom  belonged  to  the 
mission  circle,  and  amongst  them  Dr.  Hogg  and  his  fam- 
ily. The  vessel,  built  for  cattle  transit  and  used  for 
freight,  possessed  no  accommodation  for  passengers,  and 
the  captain,  irritated  at  being  compelled  to  carry  a  less 
profitable  cargo  than  was  his  wont,  made  little  effort  to 
secure  their  comfort.  The  party  arrived  as  night  was  fall- 
ing, and  there  still  rung  in  their  ears  the  warm  cheers  with 
which  the  American  marines  had  wished  them  Godspeed, 
to  bring  into  sharper  contrast  the  cold  welcome  awaiting 
them.  Through  a  yawning  hatchway  a  rough  precipitous 
ladder  led  into  the  dismal  hold  in  which  all  were  to  be 
housed.  In  its  centre  a  primitive  table  and  benches  had 
been  rudely  fashioned  of  unplaned  wood,  and  the  black 
vistas  beyond  were  dimly  visible  in  the  light  of  two  dingy 


ON  BOARD  THE  "  FALERNIAN  "        245 

lanterns.  No  further  preparations  were  in  evidence.  An 
ominous  silence  fell  as  the  arrivals  surveyed  their  new 
abode,  broken  at  last  by  a  pitiful  wail  from  one  small 
damsel  whom  not  even  her  clutch  on  a  mother's  gown 
could  reassure  in  so  dark  a  cavern. 

Before  long  it  had  been  so  transformed  as  to  resemble 
some  subterranean  laundry,  its  empty  darkness  inter- 
rupted by  interlacing  ropes  from  which  dangled  innumer- 
able sheets  unearthed  from  the  family  trunks.  Thus  sub- 
divided it  furnished  each  family  with  the  privacy  of  one 
whole  bedroom  to  itself,  beds  being  prepared  by  the 
spreading  of  cotton  quilts  on  the  iron  flooring  behind  the 
shelter  of  the  suspended  sheets.  The  dim  lanterns  were 
the  luxury  of  the  nights,  and  when  a  violent  storm 
occurred  and  the  hatchway  that  opened  on  the  deck  was 
carefully  covered  to  keep  out  the  lashing  waves,  only 
such  feeble  daylight  mitigated  the  gloom  as  could  pene- 
trate from  the  other  end,  where  a  second  ladder  led  up 
to  some  dark  passage  near  the  ship's  kitchen.  The  sway- 
ing sheets  and  the  hold's  broad  expanse  revealed  to  full 
advantage  the  violence  of  the  vessel's  roll,  and  sea-sick 
passengers  were  wooed  from  absorption  in  their  miseries 
by  the  necessity  of  clutching  to  a  rope  at  some  critical 
juncture  to  prevent  the  quilts  on  which  they  lay  from 
sliding  with  their  human  freight  under  the  dining  table, 
or  beyond  (should  the  angle  attained  favour  rapid  travel) 
to  some  other  family's  bedroom  on  the  opposite  side. 

In  this  cavern  seventeen  days  were  spent,  and  though 
its  greasy  blackness  seemed  every  day  to  thicken,  staining 
clothing  and  children  indelibly  with  grime,  and  the 
steamer-fare  became  more  Spartan,  the  layer  of  mould 
on  the  loaves  deeper,  meat  tainted  and  water  scarce,  yet 
the  health  of  none  suffered  lasting  injury  from  the  hard- 
ships  they  endured.     Imprisonment   was   lightened   by 


246  ARABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

humour  and  good  fellowship,  while  the  strong  sea-air 
brought  colour  to  some  wan  cheeks,  and  Dr.  Hogg's 
youngest  child,  who  had  lingered  long  under  a  death 
warrant  and  shrivelled  to  skin  and  bone,  became  sud- 
denly renewed  in  all  but  his  morals  and  proclaimed  with 
lusty  frequency  his  unreadiness  for  an  early  grave. 

Dr.  Hogg  had  intended  to  land  at  Malta  in  order  to 
return  to  Egypt  at  the  earliest  opportunity  and  join  Dr. 
Watson  and  Dr.  Ewing,  on  whom  the  lot  had  fallen  to 
remain  in  Alexandria  harbour  as  the  mission's  representa- 
tives in  case  some  opportunity  for  helpful  action  should 
arise.  But  the  little  island  of  Malta  had  been  already 
brought  to  the  verge  of  famine  by  crowding  refugees, 
and  permission  to  land  was  refused  him.  He  therefore 
accompanied  his  family  to  Edinburgh,  helped  to  establish 
them  in  a  new  home,  and  in  early  October  after  welcom- 
ing another  son  into  the  world,  bade  all  farewell  and  re- 
turned alone  to  Assiut. 

In  Egypt  events  had  moved  with  great  rapidity  and 
war  was  at  an  end.  With  the  bombardment  of  the  Alex- 
andrian forts  by  the  British  on  the  nth  of  July,  had  come 
the  explosion  of  Arabi's  dreams  of  victory.  To  his  dis- 
may be  discovered  that  the  enemy's  gunboats  failed  to 
sink  even  when  hit,  while  their  shot  and  shell  did  dire 
execution  on  his  forts  and  earthworks.  A  paralysis  of 
fear  replaced  his  ignorant  confidence,  and  while  his  sol- 
diers looted  and  burned  the  stricken  city  their  general 
remained  passive  and  unconcerned,  apparently  powerless 
to  plan  for  aught  but  his  personal  safety.  Henceforth 
action  was  left  to  his  underlings,  and  his  chief  anxiety 
seemed  to  be  to  avoid  battle.  In  attempting  at  last  to 
evade  the  invaders  whom  rumour  placed  at  Kafr-id- 
Dowar,  he  unexpectedly  confronted  them  at  Tel-el-Kabir, 
and  his  forces  were  thrown  into  wild  disorder,  soon  fol- 


MOSLEM  UNREST  24^7 

lowing  their  terrified  leader  in  his  flight  from  the  field. 
The  latter  only  slackened  rein  when  Cairo  was  reached, 
where,  too  weary  to  flee  farther,  he  surrendered  as  pris- 
oner, to  be  banished  soon  after  to  Ceylon. 

The  end  came  not  a  day  too  soon  for  Copts  and  Prot- 
estants. In  every  Mohammedan  land  politics  and  re- 
ligion are  indissoluble,  but  though  "  Death  to  the  Chris- 
tians "  had  been  the  cry  of  the  Alexandrian  mob  on  the 
Sunday  of  the  massacre,  all  but  foreigners  had  then  been 
immune  from  assault.  The  subsequent  retiral  of  mission- 
aries from  the  field  was  held  at  the  time  not  only  by 
them  but  by  the  native  Church  to  be  equally  expedient  for 
all,  making  less  prominent  the  ties  that  united  them,  and 
thus  decreasing  the  danger  of  the  converts  being  swept 
into  the  vortex  of  Mohammedan  hatred  that  threatened 
their  foreign  friends. 

But  it  was  only  by  extending  and  intensifying  this 
passion  of  hatred  that  Arabi  and  his  party  could  win  the 
support  they  needed.  The  measures  for  which  they  con- 
tended had  no  power  to  move  the  people,  who  knew  noth- 
ing of  constitutions,  cared  not  who  ruled  if  he  but  de- 
creased their  taxes,  and  dreaded  an  army  levy  as  they 
dreaded  the  plague.  With  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent, 
Abdullah  Nadim,  creator  of  official  bulletins  for  the 
party,  from  the  opening  of  the  war  in  the  fall  of  Alex- 
andria till  its  close  in  the  final  crash  at  Tel-el-Kabir, 
flooded  the  country  with  exciting  tales  of  glorious  vic- 
tories, and  stirring  philippics  in  prose  and  verse  in  which 
he  urged  the  faithful  to  purify  the  land  from  the  taint  of 
the  cursed  Christians.  In  these  thrilling  pages  British 
warships  went  down  at  the  bursting  of  the  first  shell,  or 
were  easily  captured  and  tugged  ignominiously  up  the 
Nile  to  spread  the  triumph  of  Islam !  On  shore  success 
was  equally  constant.    "  Tell  the  faithful  of  another  glo- 


248  ARABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

rious  victory,"  would  be  the  day's  tidings,  or  "  Seven 
thousand  infidels  slain  and  only  one  of  our  men  received 
the  crown  of  martyrdom  " ;  and  surely  the  climax  in  the 
art  of  fiction  was  attained  in  one  historic  bulletin  where 
10,000  British  soldiers  were  left  dead  upon  the  field  while 
the  only  casuality  occurring  in  the  Mohammedan  ranks 
was  a  wound  inflicted  on  one  horse,  "  in  its  mane  "  !  For 
two  months  such  items  were  the  people's  daily  food,  ac- 
companied by  more  certain  tidings  of  conscriptions  and 
requisitions  which  kept  them  in  hiding  for  weeks  at  a 
time,  and  a  growing  rumour  ever  gaining  in  definiteness 
of  a  holocaust  with  which  the  campaign  was  to  end,  when 
every  Christian  in  the  land  would  be  slaughtered  in  one 
great  sacrifice. 

In  Cairo  the  day  was  actually  fixed  and  the  butchers' 
knives  were  whetted  in  readiness — such  at  least  is  the 
general  belief,  though  proof  is  not  now  available.  After 
noon  prayers  on  Friday,  September  15,  the  massacre  was 
to  begin,  and  telegrams  sent  north  and  south  would  en- 
sure a  simultaneous  rising  everywhere.  But  before  the 
call  to  prayer  sounded  its  knell  of  doom  from  Cairo's 
minarets,  Islam  was  forced  to  sheath  its  sword  and  the 
Christians'  day  of  fear  had  ended.  Lord  Wolseley  en- 
tered the  capital,  and  British  troops  marching  through  its 
streets  proclaimed  the  downfall  of  Arabi  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  British  occupation  of  Egypt. 

As  already  indicated  these  stirring  events  left  their  mark 
both  on  Dr.  Hogg's  personal  life  and  on  the  work  with 
which  he  was  identified.  The  trial  of  separation  was  for 
a  time  almost  obliterated  in  the  pleasure  of  re-entering 
on  his  labours.  The  mission  made  a  determined  effort  to 
visit  the  entire  field  without  delay,  Dr.  Watson  spending 
three  months  in  the  far  south,  while  Dr.  Hogg  under- 
took the  towns  and  villages  within  a  radius  of  120  miles 


EGYPTIAN  FRIENDS  U9 

from  Assiut.  Mondays  were  freed  from  college  work 
to  render  such  an  arrangement  possible,  and  in  eleven 
weeks  he  preached  forty-eight  times,  the  warmth  of  his 
welcome  surprising  him  constantly,  sometimes  by  its 
intensity,  sometimes  by  the  unexpected  quarters  in  which 
it  awaited  him. 

There  were  also  new  evidences  of  the  affection  of  old 
friends.  He  received  one  morning  a  call  from  one  of 
these  who  seemed  to  him  singularly  nervous  and  ill  at 
ease.  Efforts  at  conversation  drew  forth  monosyllabic  re- 
sponses, and  the  host  was  growing  perplexed  and  curious, 
when  the  gentleman  thrust  an  open  letter  abruptly  into 
his  hand,  which  requested  Dr.  Hogg's  acceptance  of  a 
gift  of  $400  as  a  token  of  the  gratitude  of  a  few  of  his 
Assiut  friends.  Greatly  touched  by  this  unexpected  kind- 
ness he  endeavoured  to  decline,  but  his  visitor,  reHeved 
of  the  letter,  hastily  withdrew,  and  Dr.  Hogg  found  on 
his  return  to  his  study  that  a  napkin  containing  the 
money  had  been  unobtrusively  left  behind.  "  What  would 
you  advise  me  to  do  ?  "  he  wrote  to  his  wife.  "  What  I 
did  do  was  to  go  to  my  bedroom  and  thank  the  Lord 
for  this  tangible  proof  of  the  affection  and  esteem  of 
such  valued  friends."  Perhaps  they  had  divined  the 
financial  difficulties  that  had  arisen  from  the  unexpected 
necessity  of  establishing  a  new  home  in  Scotland,  and 
found  in  them  the  occasion  for  their  unprecedented  gift. 

One  of  the  donors  was  a  leader  in  the  Coptic  Church. 
Many  of  the  most  bigoted  had  now  become  cordial  well- 
wishers  and  the  attitude  of  the  whole  body  seemed  altered. 
Coptic  schools  desired  Protestant  teachers,  and  requests 
poured  in  from  towns  that  had  never  seen  a  missionary. 
When  the  Coptic  school  at  Assiut  held  its  public  exami- 
nation Dr.  Hogg  was  asked  to  preside,  treated  with  every 
honour,  and  requested  to  close  with  prayer !    Statistics  at 


250  ARABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

the  end  of  the  year  revealed  the  fact  that  there  had  been 
more  accessions  to  the  Protestant  Church  and  better  at- 
tendance on  week  nights  and  Sabbaths  than  ever  before. 
Abuna  Feltaos,  Dean  of  the  Patriarchate,  returning  to 
Cairo  from  a  visit  to  the  south,  reported  to  the  Coptic 
Council  that  the  Copts  were  all  becoming  Protestants, 
and  suggested  as  a  remedy  not  suppressive  measures  as 
in  the  days  ©f  old  but  writing  of  tracts  and  the  education 
of  the  clergy !  Dr.  Hogg,  seeing  in  these  and  other  tokens 
the  dawning  of  a  day  when  Protestants  and  Copts 
would  provoke  one  another  only  to  "  love  and  good 
works,"  felt  that  he  and  his  colleagues  had  "  not  lived 
in  vain." 

In  the  Mohammedan  field  the  stirring  of  a  new  life  was 
equally  striking.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Arabi  rebellion 
the  number  of  Mohammedan  converts  baptised  by  the 
American  mission  during  its  whole  history  had  reached 
but  twenty-six.  By  the  close  of  1883,  twenty-two  more 
had  professed  their  faith  in  Christ,  thirteen  of  whom 
had  already  been  baptised,  while  the  remaining  nine  were 
still  under  instruction.  Mohammedan  pupils  in  Protestant 
schools  numbered  523,  an  increase  of  about  a  third  in  two 
years.  At  Ekhmim,  over  a  score  of  Mohammedans  were 
in  attendance  at  the  little  village  church.  Everywhere 
Christian  books  were  bought  and  read  as  never  before 
and  the  Christian  faith  discussed  and  examined.  Dr. 
Hogg's  hopes  rose  high.  "  If  Egypt  is  given  religious 
liberty  worthy  of  the  name,"  he  wrote,  "  our  success 
amongst  Mohammedans  will  soon  surpass  that  amongst 
the  Copts." 

But  the  conditioning  "  if  "  was  momentous,  and  de- 
pended on  the  manner  in  which  Britain  would  interpret 
her  new  responsibilities.  So  keenly  did  he  realise  this 
that  his  life  seems  henceforth  burdened  by  a  new  anxiety, 


CORRESPONDENCE  251 

and  by  a  form  of  service  not  new  in  essence  but  branching 
out  in  new  directions  and  receiving  a  new  emphasis. 

His  work  had  already  in  the  past  involved  him  in 
spasmodic  intercourse  by  voice  or  pen  with  a  great  variety 
of  men  outside  of  his  own  sphere  in  Egypt  and  in  Eng- 
land. Such  intercourse  had  been  chiefly  the  outcome  of 
his  efforts  to  secure  the  suppression  of  persecution,  equal 
rights  for  all,  whether  Protestant,  Copt,  or  Mohammedan, 
and  the  removal  of  obstacles  in  the  way  of  Sunday  observ- 
ance. But  it  was  partly  the  outcome  of  matters  less 
closely  connected  with  his  work,  partly  of  accidental  cir- 
cumstances— as  in  the  case  of  the  Maharajah,  or  of  his 
casual  interview  with  the  future  King  of  England.  As 
an  interesting  bi-product  of  a  busy  life  these  extraneous 
interests  and  incidental  links  with  other  lives  seem  to 
deserve  some  special  notice,  the  more  so  that  in  the  clos- 
ing years  they  come  into  greater  prominence. 

It  was  Dr.  Hogg's  usual  custom  to  write  with  copying 
ink  and  keep  for  future  reference  a  copy  of  letters  des- 
patched. Twenty  folios  of  correspondence  have  thus 
been  preserved  and  in  turning  over  their  leaves  it  is  amus- 
ing to  notice  the  variety  of  topics  dealt  with. 

Naturally  there  is  a  large  number  of  letters  all  through 
the  years  in  regard  to  the  Arabic  books  that  are  issuing 
from  the  Beirut  press.  Once  or  twice  an  author  sends 
him  some  volume  and  desires  his  good  offices  in  intro- 
ducing it  into  Egypt.  A  gentleman  in  London  makes  the 
same  request  in  regard  to  some  illuminated  texts  in 
Arabic  characters,  and  receives  likewise  a  cordial  re- 
sponse. Some  one  writes  of  a  project  for  evangelising 
Central  Africa  by  bringing  natives  from  various  tribes 
to  Egypt  for  education,  and  Dr.  Hogg  criticises  the 
scheme  in  detail,  making  both  its  advantages  and  its 
obstacles  plain.     Another   correspondent   is   keenly   in- 


252  ARABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

terested  in  industrial  work  for  the  Egyptian  blind.  Sev- 
eral letters  ensue,  but  the  effort  is  doomed  to  failure 
owing  to  the  easy  profits  of  the  Eastern  beggar.  Egyp- 
tian friends  write  to  him  for  sewing  machines  and  reap- 
ing machines,  and  he  answers  their  inquiries  and  cor- 
responds on  their  behalf.  A  clerical  party  want  to  know 
the  probable  expenses  of  a  long  desert  trip,  and  some 
one  else  the  rent  of  a  dahabiyeh  for  the  winter,  while  a 
firm  in  Alexandria  writes  periodically  inquiring  as  to  the 
agricultural  prospects  of  the  year,  and  careful  details  are 
returned  in  regard  to  the  various  crops. 

Correspondents  of  another  type  he  owed  to  Egypt's 
historic  interest,  which  drew  men  of  all  classes  to  the  Nile 
and  incidentally  to  the  mission  house  at  Assiut.  His  en- 
counters with  such  were  sometimes  of  mere  passing  mo- 
ment, and  sometimes  left  tracks  in  his  life  for  years. 

He  felt  a  peculiar  pleasure  in  making  the  acquaintance 
of  Sir  George  Elliot,  whose  career  he  had  followed  with 
special  interest.  The  author  of  The  Light  of  Asia, 
was  also  a  welcome  visitor.  Moberly  Bell,  correspondent 
and  afterwards  manager  of  The  Times,  devoted  three 
pages  in  his  From  Pharaoh  to  Fellah  to  his  interview  with 
this  "  Chief  whom  one  would  be  glad  to  meet  elsewhere 
than  in  Assiut,"  noting  his  abundant  information,  his  love 
of  his  work  and  his  zeal  tempered  with  common  sense,  and 
reporting  in  detail  his  defence  of  the  Egyptian  character 
and  his  views  of  missionary  and  governmental  policy. 
He  met  Professor  Blackie  of  Edinburgh  University  under 
circumstances  characteristic  of  the  erratic  humour  and 
erudition  of  the  man.  A  meeting  with  Professor  Sayce, 
the  oriental  scholar,  and  his  offer  to  propose  Dr.  Hogg's 
name  for  membership  in  an  Assyriological  society,  were 
the  occasion  of  a  letter  to  his  son  Hope  suggesting  that 
they  begin  together  the  study  of  Assyrian,  as  being  of 


FIGHTING  THE  SLAVS  TRADE         253 

unique  importance  in  its  bearing  on  Biblical  study,  a  letter 
which  acquires  peculiar  interest  in  the  light  of  the  serv- 
ices his  son  was  afterwards  to  render  to  Biblical  scholar- 
ship by  giving  to  Assyriological  study  and  research  its 
just  emphasis  and  appropriate  setting. 

But  perhaps  the  most  interesting  visit  and  certainly  the 
most  prolific  of  correspondence  was  that  of  Lord  and 
Lady  Aberdeen  during  their  tour  on  the  Nile  in  the 
spring  of  1878.  They  had  made  their  trip  serve  a  double 
purpose,  as  the  Earl's  father  and  mother  had  done  in  1861, 
by  carrying  with  them  an  Egyptian  colporteur  to  sell  re- 
ligious literature  wherever  opportunity  offered,  and  they 
returned  with  four  slaves  whom  they  had  bought  and 
freed  from  slavery.  Three  were  but  children,  and  on  their 
arrival  at  Assiut  a  baptism  took  place  that  could  never 
be  forgotten  by  any  who  witnessed  it. 

The  contrast  in  rank  and  colour,  the  deeper  differences 
that  these  typified,  and  the  strange  relationship  that  sub- 
sisted between  the  little  Sudanese  blacks  whom  the 
missionary  baptised  and  named  anew,  and  the  Earl 
and  Countess  on  whom  he  laid  the  vows  on  their  be- 
half, gave  to  the  ceremony  an  interest  as  unique  as  that 
of  the  wedding  that  had  crowned  his  first  intimacy 
with  a  man  of  title.  Incidentally  it  led  to  Dr.  Hogg's 
first  clash  with  Egyptian  officials  in  regard  to  the 
slave  trade,  which  though  contraband  was  still  secretly 
indulged. 

The  boys  were  left  in  Assiut  College  for  training,  a 
convert  from  Islam  of  their  own  race  and  tongue  being 
secured  as  teacher,  and  two  months  later  teacher  and 
scholars  made  a  gallant  rescue  of  three  slave-girls  whom 
they  brought  to  Dr.  Hogg  for  protection,  and  whose 
scanty  garb  of  camel  grease  and  leather  fringe  pro- 
claimed them  as  fresh  arrivals  from  the  far  interior.    The 


254  J^RABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

subsequent  proceedings  made  strikingly  evident  the  desire 
of  the  authorities  to  avoid  investigation. 

Still  more  revealing  was  the  next  slave  catch  whicH 
occurred  two  years  later,  when  in  the  dead  of  night  a 
large  gang  was  captured  on  the  borders  of  the  desert  and 
lodged  in  the  mission  church  for  safe-keeping.  The 
captor  was  Adolph  Roth,  a  Swiss  teacher  in  the  Assiut 
College,  who  began  his  career  in  the  East  by  walking 
from  Alexandria  to  Assiut  and  ended  it  in  the  far  interior 
while  under  the  Mahdi's  rule.  A  telegram  brought  Dr. 
Hogg  from  Minya  to  the  scene  of  action,  and  days  were 
spent  in  a  vain  attempt  to  secure  a  thorough  examination 
of  the  case.  An  amusing  sample  of  the  inventive  genius 
of  the  captured  slave-drivers  is  preserved  in  the  tale  of 
one  who,  forced  to  account  for  the  possession  of  a  girl  of 
thirteen  and  two  boys  of  seven  and  nine  claimed  the  girl 
as  his  wife  of  three  years'  standing  and  the  boys  as  the 
fruit  of  their  alliance!  In  spite  of  Dr.  Hogg's  utmost 
endeavour,  the  witnesses  were  so  dealt  with  as  to  secure 
the  suppression  of  all  evidence  that  would  incriminate 
those  in  high  power.  Entering  his  protest,  he  refused  to 
sit  through  the  farce,  and  along  with  his  son  devoted  the 
next  days  more  profitably  to  the  preparation  of  a  careful 
and  exhaustive  account  of  the  facts,  a  lengthy  document 
which  was  forwarded  to  those  who  had  more  power  to 
act.  Strange  clues  that  came  later  to  his  knowledge  were 
communicated  to  the  same  quarter,  and  from  the  pages 
of  Dr.  Hogg's  correspondence  certain  corrupt  officials  of 
those  days  might  learn  unexpected  links  in  the  chain 
of  circumstances  that  deprived  them  at  last  of  the  posts 
they  dishonoured,  and  rendered  useless  the  petitions  for 
their  re-instatement  which  they  forced  from  the  reluctant 
hands  of  underlings  who  feared  their  revenge. 

The  increase  of  British  influence  in  1882  gave  an  added 


VIEWS  ON  THE  SITUATION  255 

value  to  the  missionary's  power  of  gathering  accurate 
facts,  and  of  seeing  Egypt  through  the  eyes  of  her  people. 
In  their  view  of  the  situation  he  and  his  colleagues  were 
at  one,  and  at  Lord  Dufferin's  request  he  drew  up  on 
their  behalf  a  careful  statement  of  their  opinions  which 
was  considered  by  the  recipient  of  such  value  as  to  occa- 
sion an  important  despatch  to  his  government  which  was 
incorporated  in  the  Parliamentary  blue-book. 

Dr.  Hogg  had  already  had  an  opportunity  of  express- 
ing his  opinions  privately  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  whom  Lord 
Aberdeen  had  invited  him  to  meet  while  the  war  was 
still  in  progress.  At  the  base  of  these  opinions  lay  a 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  "  the  Moslems  of  Egypt,  as 
elsewhere,  would  yield  submissively  and  without  a  mur- 
mur, to  any  dispensation  of  Providence  that  came  upon 
them  with  something  like  the  finality  and  certainty  of  a 
Divine  decree,"  and  that  "  anything  like  wavering  or  un- 
certainty in  policy  and  action  must  inevitably  convert  this 
very  fatalism  into  a  weapon  of  rebellion."  Unfortunately 
Gladstone's  ruling  po'licy  was  to  avoid  all  appearance  of 
such  finality,  and  accordingly  the  splendid  men  to  whom 
was  committed  in  Egypt  the  task  of  reconstruction  were 
fettered  in  every  attempt  at  reform. 

Meanwhile  a  Mahdi  had  arisen  in  the  Sudan,  and  rap- 
idly extending  his  sway,  was  rivetting  the  attention  and 
expectations  of  Islam.  Recruits  being  required  in  the 
Sudan,  repeated  conscriptions  kept  the  land  in  a  ferment. 
The  native  press,  given  a  free  voice,  inflamed  the  people, 
and  seditious  Arabic  papers  published  in  Paris  were  dis- 
tributed free  of  charge.  In  such  an  atmosphere  stable 
reconstruction  was  impossible,  and  Dr.  Hogg  felt  that 
Britain  was  making  the  mistake  of  trying  to  buttress  a 
ruin  when  it  should  have  been  digging  and  laying  a  strong 
foundation  on  which  to  rear  a  new  building.    Her  attitude 


256  ARABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

in  regard  to  religious  liberty  was  equally  disappointing 
to  him.  The  conversions  from  Mohammedanism  that 
followed  fast  in  each  other's  footsteps  awoke  each  in 
turn  a  storm  of  persecution,  and  as  much  labour  as  ever 
was  necessary  to  secure  redress — distracting  days  and 
nights  of  anxiety  and  toil,  urgent  telegrams,  translation 
of  Arabic  documents,  repeated  visits  on  the  part  of  his 
colleagues  in  Cairo,  and  a  voluminous  and  wide  cor- 
respondence, lasting  sometimes  for  months.  Dr.  Hogg 
believed  that  the  prompt  and  firm  handling  of  the  first 
case  would  have  made  all  easy,  but  Britain,  anxious  to 
interfere  with  no  man's  religion,  fell  short  in  her  inter- 
ference with  crime,  and  desirous  to  deal  fairly  with 
other  creeds  failed  to  command  fair  dealing  for  her  own. 

Dr.  Hogg  had  opportunities  of  studying  the  whole 
situation,  religious,  social,  and  political,  peculiar  to  his 
life  as  a  missionary.  He  moved  much  from  place  to 
place  and  was  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  Egyptians  of 
every  rank,  simple  peasants,  wealthy  landowners,  trades- 
men, and  trusted  officials  of  the  government.  Of  their 
views,  their  wrongs,  their  hopes,  and  their  fears,  they 
could  talk  to  him  with  an  unguarded  freedom  that  would 
have  been  impossible  with  any  one  connected,  however 
remotely,  with  the  government. 

Such  information  as  he  thus  gathered,  purged  of  de- 
tails that  might  implicate  the  speakers,  he  was  able  to 
hand  on  to  responsible  authorities  to  aid  in  the  righting 
of  wrongs  or  the  guidance  of  policy,  and  the  men  at  the 
wheel  as  they  came  and  went  learned  to  value  these  com- 
munications. Lord  Dufferin,  Lord  Northbrooke,  Col. 
Johnstone,  General  Baker,  Clifford  Lloyd,  and  Sir  Evelyn 
Baring  (afterwards  Lord  Cromer),  were  all  in  their  re- 
sponsible tasks  glad  to  make  use  of  the  knowledge  and 
experience  of  a  man  whose  evidence  was  always  gathered 


VIEWS  ON  BRITISH  POLICY  257 

with  a  lavish  hand  and  minute  accuracy.  Some  he  knew 
by  letter  only,  while  with  others  he  became  personally 
acquainted.  Lord  Wolseley  he  met  in  Luxor,  accom- 
panying him  over  the  ruins  of  Karnak ;  Lord  Northbrooke 
he  met  twice,  the  second  time  dining  with  him  and  re^ 
maining  in  close  conclave  for  hours  discussing  the  elabo- 
rate information  which  at  his  request  he  had  gathered. 
After  this  last  interview  he  wrote  home  despondently: 

"  The  British  Government  do  not  seem  even  yet  to 
have  resolved  on  a  decidedly  strong  policy  in  Egypt.  I 
made  a  strong  point  of  raising  the  tax  on  tithed  lands 
(these  being  usually  rich  and  well-watered,  owned  for 
the  most  part  by  wealthy  Pashas,  yet  liable  to  a  tax 
often  less  than  a  third  of  that  exacted  from  the  poor 
fellah  for  poorer  land).  He  was  not  prepared  to  recom- 
mend this,  simply  because  a  change  so  radical  would 
virtually  implj  that  Britain  had  taken  the  administration 
into  her  own  hands.  It  was  the  same  in  regard  to  the 
appointment  of  British  officials  in  the  provinces  as  a 
check  on  the  venality  and  tyranny  of  the  Turkish  officials, 
although  he  admitted  it  was  what  everybody  was  crying 
out  for.  He  spoke  freely  of  his  own  opinions  and  gave 
evidence  of  having  studied  the  subject  with  great  care." 

This  tone  of  despondency  deepened  as  disaster,  thick- 
ening in  the  interior,  gave  birth  in  Egypt  to  more  open 
hostility  to  British  influence  on  the  part  of  those  through 
whom  she  attempted  to  execute  her  reforms,  and  to  ex- 
citing tales  ambngst  the  people  of  the  northward  march 
of  Moslem  hordes. 

A  rumour  that  Khartum  had  fallen  was  followed  by  the 
news  that  Gordon  was  passing  on  his  way  southward.  He 
was  accompanied  by  the  new  Sultan  of  Darfur,  and,  with 
the  General's  generous  sanction,  also  by  the  Sultan's  wife, 
whom  on  reaching  his  steamer  at  Assiut  he  discovered 


258  ARABI  PASHA'S  REBELLION 

with  dismay  to  be  a  composite  body  of  forty-two  black 
women  squatting  each  with  her  bundle  of  clothes  at  her 
side  and  covering  his  whole  upper  deck !  Gordon  was 
in  the  best  of  spirits.  "  Tell  all  your  friends,"  was  his 
message  "  that  there  is  absolutely  no  cause  to  be  alarmed 
about  the  Mahdi.  All  will  be  arranged  and  very  soon 
too." 

But  the  sense  of  cheer  the  message  brought  was 
fleeting,  and  the  next  news  was  of  General  Baker's  defeat 
in  the  East  Sudan.  "  If  this  does  not  bring  the  British 
cabinet  to  its  senses,"  Dr.  Hogg  declared,  "  and  lead  to  a 
reversal  of  policy,  I  shall  be  tempted  to  pull  down  the 
Union  Jack  and  tell  Salim  to  hoist  the  American  flag." 

At  last  came  the  crushing  word  that  Gordon  had  fallen, 
"  I  am  sick  at  heart,"  he  wrote.  "  The  newspapers' 
ominous  silence  the  last  few  days  makes  me  fear  that  it  is 
true."  And  a  week  later  when  the  rumour  had  been 
verified  beyond  question,  "  I  feel  more  like  praying  than 
talking.  What  an  outburst  there  will  be  on  poor  Mr. 
Gladstone  in  next  week's  papers.  I  wish  it  had  been  less 
deserved." 

It  was  the  dark  hour  that  precedes  the  dawn,  but  before 
its  gloom  had  been  dispelled  by  the  light  of  a  new  day  and 
Britain  had  begun  to  approve  herself  as  a  bringer  of 
prosperity  to  Egypt,  Dr.  Hogg  had  left  his  tasks  in  other 
hands  and  passed  behind  the  veil. 


XV 
WINDS  OF  DOCTRINE 

I  will  tell  you  what  I  have  found  spoil  more  good  talks 
than  anything  else; — long  arguments  on  special  points  be- 
tween people  who  differ  on  the  fundamental  principles 
upon  which  these  points  depend. 

I  show  my  thoughts^  another  his;  if  they  agree,  well; 
if  they  differ,  we  find  the  largest  common  factor,  if  we 
can,  but  at  any  rate  avoid  disputing  about  remainders  and 
fractions,  which  is  to  real  talk  what  tuning  an  instrument 
is  to  playing  on  it. 

— Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 

The  dust  of  controversy,  what  is  it  but  the  falsehood 
flying  off  from  all  manner  of  conflicting  true  forces. 

— Carlyle:  Past  and  Present. 

FROM  cares  political  our  tale  swings  back  once 
more  to  cares  more  Pauline,  but  it  is  with  a  new 
phase  of  labour  for  the  Church  that  we  have  now 
to  do,  a  combat  with  Plymouthism  that  threatened 
division  and  blight. 

One  would  expect  the  history  of  an  'ism  to  be  of 
somewhat  scholastic  flavour,  to  show  us  perhaps  clearly 
Dr.  Hogg,  the  polemic  theologian,  but  only  through  a 
foggy  atmosphere  Dr.  Hogg,  the  man.  The  reverse  is 
the  case,  however,  and  the  whole  tale,  from  its  opening 
scene  in  the  resignation  of  a  missionary  to  the  unfinished 
act  in  which  Dr.  Hogg  steps  off  the  stage,  is  thoroughly 
human  in  its  interest  to  any  one  whose  attention  is  not 
confined  to  the  surface  of  events. 

259 


260  WINDS  OF  DOCTRINE 

Rev.  B.  F.  Pinkerton  resigned  his  connection  with  the 
mission  in  1871  at  the  dictate  of  his  conscience.  He 
had  adopted  the  Plymouthite  views  of  the  Church,  the 
world,  and  the  Christian's  responsibilities,  and  from  that 
point  of  view  his  duty  seemed  to  him  to  lie  elsewhere 
than  in  Egypt.  There  is  always  a  tragic  element  in  an 
unfinished  task  resigned.  His  colleagues  felt  this  deeply, 
and  regretted  his  departure  the  more  that  he  had  won 
from  all  both  love  and  esteem.  When,  however,  in  1874, 
Mr.  Pinkerton's  conscience  reversed  its  dictum  and  sent 
him  back  to  Egypt  to  win  to  his  point  of  view  "  elect " 
souls  in  the  Egyptian  Church,  his  return  could  awaken 
in  his  old  friends  little  pleasure.  Such  a  line  of  action 
seemed  inexplicable.  How  could  a  Christian  deliberately 
set  out  on  an  enterprise  whose  inevitable  outcome  would 
be  the  creation  of  division  among  Christ's  people  ?  How 
could  conscience  demand  his  coming  to  teach  to  those 
who  were  already  Christians  in  heart  as  well  as  in  name, 
doctrines  which,  even  had  they  been  true,  were  of  sec- 
ondary importance,  while  millions  around  were  living 
a  starved  life  for  lack  of  the  great  essential?  How 
indeed  could  he  reconcile  his  course  with  the  most  ordi- 
nary code  of  honour?  The  missionaries  found  them- 
selves in  a  delicate  position.  To  avoid  the  appearance 
of  setting  their  seal  of  approval  on  his  strange  doctrines, 
they  felt  bound  to  hold  aloof  from  a  man  whom  for  his 
own  sake  they  would  gladly  have  welcomed.  They  could 
not  hinder  him  from  disseminating  his  views,  but  they 
could  make  it  evident  from  the  outset  that  they  consid- 
ered those  views  erroneous,  and  could  thus  put  the  un- 
wary on  their  guard. 

Dr.  Hogg,  like  his  comrades,  regarded  Mr.  Pinker- 
ton's  return  with  apprehension  and  was  equally  anxious 
to  prevent  the  harm  likely  to  result  from  his  visit.    He 


RELATIONS  WITH  MR.  PINKERTON       261 

prayed  much  for  guidance  as  he  awaited  developments, 
but  the  developments  that  followed  led  him  into  a  course 
of  action  diametrically  opposed  to  that  adopted  at  the 
other  stations. 

Discovering  one  day  at  his  own  door  the  man  about 
whom  he  had  been  praying,  he  unhesitatingly  urged  him 
to  become  his  guest,  and  Mr.  Pinkerton,  who  had  pur- 
posed another  door  and  to  whom  therefore  the  encounter 
was  equally'  unexpected,  could  not  resist  the  welcome 
accorded  him.  A  fortnight  followed,  in  which  Mr.  Pin- 
kerton preached  nothing  but  the  fundamentals  in  regard 
to  which  both  were  agreed,  and  discussed  his  peculiar 
views  only  in  his  host's  study. 

It  is  not  in  the  province  of  this  narrative  to  decide 
the  right  or  wrong  of  the  course  adopted  but  rather  to 
call  attention  to  the  singular  situation  it  involved.  Here 
were  two  men  whose  whole  systems  of  thought  were  not 
only  at  variance,  but  in  important  points  actively  antag- 
onistic. The  one  believed  the  other  to  have  set  out  on 
a  line  of  action  wrong  in  itself  and  certain  to  injure 
seriously  a  cause  dearer  to  him  than  life.  His  attempts 
to  correct  the  influence  of  the  other  man's  conduct  were 
in  later  years  to  cost  him  such  strain  of  heart,  brain,  and 
nerve  that  at  his  death  it  would  be  said  by  some,  "  The 
Plymouthites  killed  him."  Yet  the  fortnight  the  oppo- 
nents spent  together  was  one  of  pleasant  fellowship,  an 
uplift,  not  a  strain,  and  this  end  was  secured  while 
indulging  the  most  absolute  candour  and  discussing 
freely  the  subjects  of  disagreement. 

The  letters  that  tell  of  the  visit  are  revealing.  True 
to  his  nature,  Dr.  Hogg  dug  through  all  the  corollaries 
of  his  friend's  belief  to  reach  the  ground  thoughts  of 
his  Plymouthism.  Doing  so,  he  discovered  a  platform 
that  rested  on  what  seemed  to  him  an  illogical  and  fan- 


262  WINDS  OF  DOCTRINE 

tastic  scheme  of  Scriptural  interpretation,  but  a  platform 
from  which  the  man's  outlook  became  intelligible  and 
his  conduct  so  inevitable  as  to  leave  no  room  for  resent- 
ment, whatever  harm  he  wrought.  It  is  not  great  things 
that  cause  friction  but  the  small  excrescences  on  their  sur- 
face. Dr.  Hogg,  understanding  the  man,  attacked  not 
the  smaller  details  of  his  conduct  that  were  the  logical 
superstructure  of  his  friend's  thought  and  the  irritating 
factors  in  the  case,  but  their  illogical  foundation  only. 
Their  discussions  thus  ranged  in  the  region  of  the  great 
fundamentals  of  religion,  which  make  men  humble,  and 
from  which  spring  forces  that  unite  them  in  love  of  God 
and  man,  single-hearted  devotion  to  duty,  and  confidence 
in  prayer. 

At  the  close  of  the  fortnight  Dr.  Hogg  wrote  full 
particulars  of  the  visit  in  a  letter  to  his  mission  friends, 
and  explained  the  circumstances  that  had  led  to  his 
action.  He  told  of  the  frankness  with  which  he  had 
expressed  to  Mr.  Pinkerton  his  disapproval  of  his  mis- 
sion, of  their  subsequent  discussions  of  their  views,  in 
which  his  guest,  though  unconvinced,  was  often  unable 
to  answer  his  arguments;  of  their  prayers  together  that 
no  harm  should  result  to  the  work  through  his  visit, 
and  of  the  hope  he  treasured  of  final  success  in  inducing 
him  to  accept  a  more  reasonable  interpretation  of  the 
Bible.  At  the  same  time  he  expressed  the  utmost  sym- 
pathy with  the  man  himself,  and  strove  to  make  clear 
the  reasoning  that  compelled  the  holder  of  such  views 
not  to  preach  to  "  sinners  "  but  to  labour  only  towards 
"  the  edifying  of  the  body  of  Christ." 

"  I  have  no  doubt,"  he  remarked,  "  that  it  is  awfully 
hard  for  him  to  do  as  he  does,  and  nothing  could  nerve 
him  to  do  so  but  the  firm  belief  that  there  is  a  woe  laid 
upon  him  if  he  refuses  to  take  up  this  heavy  cross — the 


VIEWS  ON  MR.  PINKEirrON'S  VISIT       263 

cross  of  losing  the  respect  and  incurring  the  ill-will  of 
so  many  of  Christ's  ministry." 

One  peculiarity  of  his  letter,  however,  created  misun- 
derstanding. So  usual  is  it  in  explaining  the  views  of 
an  opponent  to  prejudice  the  reader  by  one's  mode  of 
presentment,  that  Dr.  Hogg's  very  opposite  course  stag- 
gered his  friends.  All  else  in  his  letter  was  overlooked, 
and  a  false  impression  created.  He  discovered  the  mis- 
understanding that  had  arisen,  and  wrote  to  explain  his 
position  more  fully. 

"  Your  remarks  in  regard  to  my  letters  about   Mr. 

Pinkerston's  visit,  etc.,  and  the  extract  from  Mr.  's 

letter  in  regard  to  my  rumoured  sympathy  with 
Mr.  Pinkerton's  views,  astounded  and  pained  me.  Surely 
you  must  have  read  my  letter  very  hurriedly,  or  I  must 
have  failed  egregiously  in  making  it  plain  that  it  was 
not  of  his  peculiar  notions  that  I  wrote  as  I  did.  There 
is  no  man  in  our  mission  who  can  have  less  sympathy 
with  Plymouthism  than  I  have ;  but  surely  one  can  respect 
a  man  who  acts  consistently  with  his  own  peculiar  ideas 
of  truth  and  duty,  without  thereby  endorsing  those  ideas. 
If  the  brethren  in  Alexandria  treated  him  as  '  a  brother 
that  walketh  disorderly,'  their  object  was  to  prevent  the 
spread  of  his  peculiar  opinions  among  their  flock.  It 
was  with  this  very  object  that  we  gave  him  a  different 
reception.  We  may  have  erred  in  judgment.  I  think 
we  did  not.  Circumstances  alter  methods  and  means, 
though  they  do  not  alter  principles.  It  is  possible  that 
when  he  returns  we  may  see  it  necessary  to  treat  him 
differently.  In  this  we  must  be  guided  by  wisdom  from 
on  high,  not  by  the  example  of  others  who  will  not  be 
responsible  for  us  and  our  actions  when  we  stand  before 
the  judgment-seat.  All  things  went  on  while  he  was 
with  us  just  as  they  had  been  doing  and  as  they  have 
been  doing  since.  Had  we  received  him  as  an  enemy  it 
would  have  been  very  different." 


264.  WINDS  OF  DOCTRINE 

Mr.  Pinkerton,  after  a  short  stay  in  the  south,  left 
Egypt,  and  the  two  men  seem  to  have  met  only  once 
more,  in  1880,  when  Mr.  Pinkerton,  as  the  guest  of  an 
Egyptian  friend,  was  paying  his  third  visit  to  Assiut. 
They  exchanged  calls  marked  by  the  same  candour  and 
cordiality  as  before,  and  Mr.  Pinkerton  accepted  and 
promised  to  study  some  literature  on  the  subjects  of  dis- 
pute between  them. 

He  had  meanwhile,  however,  been  prosecuting  assid- 
uously the  mission  to  which  he  believed  himself  called, 
and  was  slowly  but  surely  leavening  the  Church,  not  so 
much  by  his  distribution  of  Plymouthite  tracts  as  by 
concentrating  upon  a  few  of  the  ablest  and  most  earnest 
young  men  in  its  ministry  the  full  force  of  his  personal 
friendship  and  influence.  His  attractive  character  and 
the  joyous  fervour  of  his  religious  life  enabled  him  to 
exercise  over  them  no  mean  power,  the  more  so  that 
his  difference  of  creed  was  not  at  first  apparent  to  them, 
and  they  were  thoroughly  permeated  by  his  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Bible  before  they  realised  whither  such  meth- 
ods of  interpretation  would  lead. 

As  early  as  1879,  Dr.  Hogg  had  begun  to  write  labori- 
ous answers  to  the  questions  that  had  arisen  in  their 
minds,  but  it  was  not  until  after  the  Arabi  rebellion 
that  the  movement  assumed  such  proportions  as  to 
threaten  the  unity  of  the  Church. 

In  January,  1883,  Dr.  Hogg,  at  the  pastors'  request, 
held  for  them  a  special  class  for  the  study  of  their  dif- 
ficulties. Their  minds,  however,  were  full  of  questions 
of  Church  government,  order  of  service,  and  the  exercise 
of  spiritual  gifts,  and  these  matters  had  assumed  for 
them  such  exaggerated  importance  as  to  dwarf  the  more 
vital  points  of  controversy.  Dr.  Hogg  wrote  pathetically 
to  his  wife  of  his  difficulty. 


A  CLASS  FOR  PASTORS  265 

"  I  found  the  pastors  very  dififiicult  to  please  in  regard 
to  my  manner  of  conducting  the  class,  but  I  hope  to 
succeed  now  a  little  better.  They  do  not  wish  general 
principles ;  they  wish  little  odds  and  ends  of  details  and 
side  issues,  and  would  like  to  have  them  settled  witihout 
having  their  minds  '  distracted  '  by  what  seems  to  them 
(blind  that  they  are)  to  have  no  earthly  connection  with 
them.  The  material  that  I  had  prepared  wherewith  to 
put  them  right  on  these  general  principles,  and  so  pre- 
pare them  to  understand  the  drift  of  my  future  dis- 
cussions, they  have  simply  refused  to  look  at,  at  present. 
When  the  class  is  over  they  would  like  to  have  copies 
of  it,  but  now  they  do  not  wish  to  have  their  minds  dis- 
tracted by  it  from  the  subject  on  hand !  I  wish  the 
month  were  over.    Yet  they  want  to  be  edified !  " 

But  not  even  when  the  class  was  over  would  those 
most  affected  by  the  Plymouthite  views  concentrate  their 
minds  on  fundamentals  and  give  to  the  work  of  the 
teacher  they  loved  the  patient  study  it  deserved ;  and 
two  months  later  they  addressed  to  the  Presbytery  a 
letter  raising  seven  objections  to  Presbyterianism  and 
Church  organisation  and  claiming  the  right  to  teach 
opposite  views  unless  they  were  controverted  by  cate- 
gorical proofs  from  Scripture.  To  this  letter  Dr.  Hogg 
was  appointed  to  prepare  a  reply,  and  as  the  controversy 
was  henceforth  transferred  from  a  private  to  a  public 
arena,  the  story  might  at  this  point  become  irredeemably 
ecclesiastical,  had  not  a  living  picture  been  preserved 
for  us  of  the  man  in  the  midst  of  his  polemic  labours, 
which  seems  to  humanise  the  whole. 

His  answer  was  written  in  Dr.  Lansing's  little  square 
house  at  Hilwan,  in  the  corner  of  whose  court  stood 
a  small  building  which  acted  as  church  on  Sabbath,  and 
theological  seminary  on  week  days  to  five  Egyptian 
students.     Around    stretched    the    pure    sand    of    the 


266  WINDS  OF  DOCTRINE 

desert ;  behind,  a  line  of  rocky  hills ;  in  front,  the  valley 
of  the  Nile,  "  a  glorious  panorama  of  desert,  green 
field,  river,  palm  groves,  and  pyramids,  with  the  white 
Mokattam,  the  wall  of  the  great  desert,  beyond." 

Surely  no  atmosphere  could  have  been  secured  less 
tainted  by  the  aroma  of  ecclesiastical  disputes !  A  morn- 
ing hour  in  the  desert  while  his  friends  slept,  three  hours 
of  teaching  of  the  type  his  soul  delighted  in,  exhilarating 
intercourse  with  congenial  comrades  round  the  family 
board,  and  games  with  the  students  in  the  cool  of  the 
day,  made  up  the  routine  of  the  life  into  which  was 
sandwiched  the  writing  of  the  pamphlet  for  which  the 
Presbytery  had  asked. 

Dr.  Cairns,*  who,  as  a  young  man  in  search  of  health, 
was  spending  the  spring  months  with  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Lansing,  speaks  of  Dr.  Hogg  as  coming  into  the  circle 
"  like  a  breath  of  life."  He  had  met  him  in  Cairo  a 
month  before,  and  thus  describes  his  first  impressions : 

"  Dr.  Hogg  was  seated  cross-legged  on  the  divan, 
wearing  a  long  grey  dressing-gown  and  a  cap,  and 
seemed  to  my  eyes  curiously  like  an  Eastern  sheikh.  .  .  . 
His  figure  at  once  caught  one's  eye,  his  face  so  mobile 
and  full  of  power  and  his  whole  frame  muscular  and 
instinct  with  vitality.  His  talk  that  night  was  to  me 
of  extraordinary  interest.  He  had  just  come  down  from 
Assiut,  and  brought  with  him  news  of  the  first  begin- 
nings of  the  great  Mahdist  uprising  in  the  Sudan  .  .  . 
the  unknown,  formidable  Moslem  Messiah,  the  wild 
tribesmen  that  were  gathering  to  his  standard,  and  the 
dread  that  they  would  swoop  down  on  the  Nile  Valley 
from  the  eastern  desert  and  even  divert  the  water  of 
the  river  and  turn  the  Delta  into  a  wilderness." 

He  thus  describes  the  man : 

♦D.  S.  Cairns,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Systematic  Theology, 
United  Free  Church  College,  Aberdeen,  Scotland. 


THE  RETREAT  AT  HILWAN  267 

"  He  was  then  in  the  very  flower  of  all  his  power — 
a  fine  man  physically  as  well  as  mentally  and  spiritually. 
I  remember  his  athletic  figure  opposite  me  at  table,  and 
above  it  his  remarkable  head,  energy  and  character 
written  in  every  line  of  the  features  and  in  the  high 
arched  brow.  A  more  delightful  companion  and  friend 
no  man  could  have  had  than  he  was  to  us  all.  His  rela- 
tions with  Dr.  Lansing,  as  well  as  with  Mrs.  Lansing, 
were  delightful.  The  two  men  worked  together  in  con- 
genial fellowship.  With  the  students  he  was  equally  ad- 
mirable, and  they  adored  him." 

The  visitor  recalls  foot-races  in  the  desert,  "  the 
students  tailing  out  in  the  rear,  and  Dr.  Hogg  far  in 
the  van,  his  long  arms  tucked  in  and  head  and  chest  out, 
making  splendid  time."  The  following  passage  preserves 
a  picture  of  an  occasional  hour  of  recreation  snatched 
at  night  "  to  refresh  his  spirit  with  some  humanity  in 
the  midst  of  his  polemics." 

"  I  would  be  lying  on  the  divan,"  Dr.  Cairns  writes, 
"  reading  away  at  McClintock  and  Strong's  Theological 
Encyclopadia,  and  Dr.  Lansing  would  be  deep  in  his 
Hebrew  Bible,  when  a  knock  would  be  heard  at  the  door 
and  Dr.  Hogg  would  enter,  smiling  in  response  to  our 
hails  of  welcome.  He  was  clad  in  a  long  dressing-gown 
which  came  down  nearly  to  his  feet,  and  in  his  hand  he 
bore  a  small  volume  of  the  Tonic  Solfa  Reporter.  .  .  . 
Then  for  about  an  hour  there  would  be  a  time  of  unre- 
strained merriment,  corresponding  to  the  *  rag '  at  a 
students'  camp  and  having  just  the  same  psychological 
meaning  and  value.  Dr.  Hogg  was  of  course  the  centre 
of  it  all,  singing  gloriously  and  eddying  about  on  the 
floor  in  the  dressing-gown  acting  the  songs,  while 
Lansing  lay  back  in  his  chair  with  his  fez  on  the  back  of 
his  head,  his  eyes  twinkling  and  his  body  shaking  with 
laughter,  and  we  both  applauded  and  encouraged  the 
disgraceful  scene.  Many  Scotch  songs  were  sung,  but 
not  all  classical  or  Scotch.     '  Villikins  and  his  Dinah ' 


268  WINDS  OF  DOCTRINE 

and  '  Shivery  Shakery  *  represent  the  cosmopolitan  ele- 
ment. Where  he  got  them  I  have  no  idea,  but  there  they 
w^ere.  But  he  could  sing  pathetic  songs  most  beautifully, 
too.  One  in  particular  I  remember,  partly  for  its  own 
simplicity  and  beauty,  and  perhaps  partly  because  it  was, 
too  soon  for  us,  to  be  fulfilled. 

"  '  Beyond  the  sighing  and  the  weeping, 

I  shall  be  soon, 
Beyond  the  waking  and  the  sleeping, 
Beyond  the  sowing  and  the  reaping, 

I  shall  be  soon. 
Love,  rest,  and  home,  sweet,  sweet  home ; 
Lord,  tarry  not,  oh  tarry  not,  but  come.' 

After  an  hour  or  so  of  this  touching  of  the  many  strings 
of  the  instrument,  he  would  put  on  his  cap  and  take 
farewell,  and  the  door  would  close ;  the  old  doctor  would 
turn  to  his  Hebrew  Bible  and  I  to  my  encyclopaedia,  and 
Dr.  Hogg  to  his  Plymouth  Brethren." 

Was  it  because  every  string  in  the  instrument  was  kept 
responsive  to  the  touch,  that  it  remained  in  tune  with 
life,  and  awoke  no  discords  through  the  weary  contro- 
versy that  followed? 

The  details  of  that  controversy  may  be  left  for  the 
future  historian  of  the  Egyptian  Church  to  relate.  The 
traces  are  now  visible  only  in  unobtrusive  groups  of 
pious  Plymouthites  in  various  towns  and  villages,  who 
delight  in  informal  worship  and  the  singing  of  hymns, 
and  are  accused  by  others  of  considering  themselves  holier 
than  their  neighbours,  and  of  caring  more  for  their 
own  growth  in  grace  than  for  the  conversion  of  the 
world.  While  to  an  outsider  such  defects  might  seem 
a  natural  outgrowth  of  Plymouthite  doctrine,  they  in- 
vade too  successfully  every  branch  of  the  Christian 
Church  to  allow  any  of  us  to  cast  at  them  the  first 


THE  PROTAGONISTS  S69 

stone,  and  all  that  concerns  us  at  present  is  the  effect 
of  the  movement  on  the  life  we  are  tracing. 

For  long  a  serious  split  in  the  Church  seemed  im- 
minent; and  while  many  laboured  with  him  to  avert  the 
catastrophe,  he  stood  so  pre-eminently  before  the  public 
as  the  exponent  of  the  Church's  views  and  the  exposer 
of  the  innovating  errors,  that  to  his  deep  regret,  not  to 
say  disgust,  many  confused  the  issue  at  stake,  and  be- 
lieved that  the  contest  was  not  between  the  Church  and 
PlymSuthism  but  between  Dr.  Hogg  and  the  Egyptian 
Plymouthite  leader,  Rev.  Girgis  Rafael.  That  such  a 
position  entailed  a  heavy  burden  on  the  man  who  held 
it  was  patent  to  all.  The  public,  however,  could  see  but 
a  small  part  of  what  Plymouthism  cost  him.  The  heavi- 
est price  was  paid  in  secret  in  the  weary  effect  on  heart 
and  soul  of  disappointment  and  sorrow. 

We  have  already  touched  on  the  hopes  that  the  events 
of  1882,  the  year  of  the  Rebellion,  had  stirred  within 
him  by  their  effect  upon  Protestants,  Copts,  and  Mos- 
lems. In  the  summer  of  1883  a  scourge  of  cholera 
moved  to  more  active  life  the  new-born  forces,  and  a 
revival  awakened  in  the  Church  that  spirit  of  evangelism 
for  which  Dr.  Hogg  had  so  long  prayed.  It  was  no 
slight  pain  to  him  to  watch  it  vanish,  its  work  but  half 
accomplished,  before  the  spirit  of  dissension  that  was 
the  offspring  of  the  doings  of  those  he  had  loved  and 
trained. 

The  cholera  visitation  had  occurred  in  his  absence, 
and  he  returned  to  Assiut  to  find  the  town  moved  to 
its  heart,  the  Church  aflame,  and  her  Coptic  sister  in 
self-defence  imitating  her  tactics.  A  crowded  evening 
meeting  was  held  by  both,  and  as  he  threaded  his  way 
by  lantern-light  through  dark  streets,  his  heart  thrilled 
to  see  up  narrow  lanes  dim  groups  of  men,  a  lantern 


270  WINDS  OF  DOCTRINE 

and  a  Bible  in  their  midst,  listening  to  the  message  of 
the  Gospel  from  the  lips  of  a  Protestant  schoolboy  or 
some  member  of  the  Church  with  a  little  knowledge  and 
much  faith.  There  had  been  no  need  of  a  foreign  mis- 
sionary to  organise  such  efforts.  They  had  sprung  into 
spontaneous  being  from  a  new  experience  of  Christ's 
power  to  keep  the  heart  calm  while  death  walked 
through  the  land. 

Into  the  midst  of  the  movement  came  Dr.  Hogg's 
Plymouthite  friends,  while  the  effects  of  their  influence 
at  other  places  compelled  his  absence,  and  he  came  back 
to  find  that  its  precious  fruit  had  under  the  blight  of 
discord  fallen  ungarnered  to  the  ground.  The  same  sad 
drama  was  enacted  at  Nakheilah,  and  the  church  of 
Ekhmim,  of  which  he  was  the  earthly  father,  was  only 
saved  from  dissolution  by  a  timely  visit,  during  which, 
after  weary  conferences,  one  of  them  of  ten  hours'  dura- 
tion, he  was  able  to  restore  harmony  and  hope. 

The  strain  involved  by  such  visitation  was  great.  One 
siege  of  discussion  with  a  disaffected  pastor  began  at 
8  P.M.,  after  a  full  day's  work,  was  interrupted  in  the 
early  morning  by  four  hours  of  restless  tossing  enliv- 
ened by  mosquitoes  and  their  allies,  was  continued  after 
breakfast  through  the  hot  hours  of  the  day,  resumed  at 
night  when  the  evening  meeting  had  dispersed,  and 
abandoned  at  last  without  result  a  few  hours  before  a 
second  dawn.  But  the  strain  of  the  actual  labour  that 
the  controversy  involved  was  nothing  to  that  caused  by 
the  harsh  jangling  of  its  irreconcilable  claims.  It  was 
more  important  than  ever  that  he  should  be  abroad 
among  the  churches,  yet  more  likely  than  ever  to  prove 
disastrous  should  he  neglect  his  own  station.  The  Assiut 
pastor  was  ill  and  the  congregation  in  the  missionary's 
charge,  and  his  departure  would  be  the  signal  for  the 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  PEN  271 

entrance  of  discord.  Yet  appeals  for  his  presence  poured 
in  from  every  quarter  and  the  substitutes  he  suggested 
were  refused.  "  It  almost  drives  me  crazy,"  he  wrote, 
longing  to  respond. 

For  the  most  part,  the  message  of  the  pen  had  to  take 
the  place  of  more  effective  help.  And  even  here  he 
found  himself  shackled ;  for  while  fifteen  Arabic  docu- 
ments of  varying  size  were  his  answer  to  the  people's 
call  for  an  antidote  to  Plymouthite  teaching,  they  had 
to  do  their  work,  like  Paul's  epistles  in  the  first  century, 
without  the  aid  of  printer's  ink.  Manuscript  copies  were 
eagerly  made,  circulated,  read,  and  declared  by  the  people 
to  be  the  message  for  the  hour,  but  when  they  pleaded 
for  printed  copies  to  reach  a  wider  public  he  was  helpless. 
This  was  the  case  even  with  the  lengthy  pamphlet,  al- 
ready referred  to,  which  was  written  at  the  request  of 
Presbytery.  The  churches  were  clamorous  for  the  400 
copies  promised  them,  but  mysterious  delays  occurred 
in  its  publication.  "  Perhaps  they  will  be  ready  some 
time  before  the  end  of  the  British  Occupation," 
the  author  wrote  rather  grimly  to  a  colleague;  and 
another  year  passed  by  before  his  work  appeared  in 
print. 

His  writing  was  in  part  a  pleasure.  "  The  true  calling 
of  the  Christian  Church,"  "  The  righteousness  of  God," 
**  The  relation  of  the  Christian  to  the  moral  law,"  "  The 
Christian  Church  the  Kingdom  of  God  " — these  were 
themes  vital  to  the  controversy  yet  big  enough  to  arouse 
his  enthusiasm.  But  another  class  of  subjects,  inevitably 
thrust  upon  him,  caused  severe  strain  of  soul.  How  it 
can  be  lawful  to  follow  parliamentary  order  in  Church 
courts,  though  clerks  and  minute  books  are  not  men- 
tioned in  the  New  Testament;  why  only  ordained  men 
should  be  allowed  to  dispense  the  sacraments;  why  the 


272  WINDS  OF  DOCTRINE 

American  United  Presbyterian  Church  and  its  offshoot 
in  Egypt  use  no  hymns  in  their  church  services, — these 
and  kindred  topics  uncongenial  and  secondary  he  could 
only  by  sheer  force  of  will  treat  as  exhaustively  as  the 
peculiar  circumstances  demanded.  His  task  was  the 
more  thankless,  as  he  knew  the  leaders  to  have  reached 
a  state  of  saturation  in  Plymouthite  thought  which  ren- 
dered them  almost  incapable  of  feeling  the  force  of 
arguments  that  they  could  not  refute,  while  they  had 
abundant  leisure  to  deluge  him  with  long  replies  which 
neither  his  conscience  nor  his  affection  would  allow  him 
to  pass  by  unanswered. 

While  his  efforts  to  convince  the  leaders  were  thus 
futile,  his  writings  played  no  insignificant  part  in  the 
final  restoration  of  peace,  by  enabling  the  members  of 
the  Church  to  choose  sides  intelligently.  The  real  issues 
at  stake  being  clearly  understood,  few  were  willing  to 
leave  the  parent  Church  when  the  day  of  decision  ar- 
rived, and  Rev.  Girgis  Rafael  found  himself  at  the  last 
with  but  a  small  following. 

An  all-conquering  affection  for  the  men  who  were 
causing  the  trouble  pervades  Dr.  Hogg's  whole  cor- 
respondence. Not  once  did  he  impute  to  them  motives 
lower  than  his  own.  Not  once  did  he  write  of  them 
words  it  would  have  wounded  them  to  read.  "  They  are 
among  our  best  and  most  pious  men  and  I  am  loth  to 
give  them  up,"  he  could  say  in  the  very  letter  that  tells 
that  two  of  his  best  years  had  been  consumed  in  checking 
the  mischief  they  had  wrought.  For  Rev.  Girgis  Rafael 
his  sympathy  was  acute,  and  it  was  with  deep  anxiety 
that  he  noted  in  his  haggard  face  the  marks  of  prolonged 
struggle  and  its  resultant  insomnia.  "  I  can  see  his  dif- 
ficulties from  his  standpoint,"  he  wrote,  "  but  I  fear  no 
one  else  does;"  and  he  was  deeply  troubled  lest   the 


THE  LAST  IRENICON  STS 

Presbytery  should  act  in  the  case  "  more  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  subordinate  standards  than  of  the  Bible." 
He  did  everything  in  his  power  to  avert  such  a  calamity, 
and  in  the  final  breach  it  was  the  men  themselves  who 
took  the  initiative. 

Dr.  Hogg's  "  last  Irenicon "  was  not  even  read.  It 
was  a  long  letter  to  Rev.  Girgis  Rafael,  the  outcome  of 
laborious  thought,  accompanied  by  a  new  thesis  in  which 
he  made  a  final  effort  to  meet  his  difficulties.  It  was 
an  appeal  to  study  the  thesis  and  talk  it  over  with  his 
old  teacher  before  taking  decisive  action.  It  reached 
the  pastor  on  the  eve  of  the  Sabbath  on  which  with  a 
few  followers  he  was  to  cross  the  Rubicon,  separate 
from  the  Church,  and  take  an  initial  step  in  the  forma- 
tion of  a  new  sect.  The  letter  covered  eight  large  closely 
written  pages  and  was  handed  to  him  by  one  of  his  old 
flock.  He  read  the  first  two  pages,  returned  the  letter 
to  its  envelope,  and  laid  the  whole  aside.  "  Why  don't 
you  finish  it?"  asked  the  bearer,  who  was  anxiously 
awaiting  developments.  "  What  is  the  use  ?  "  was  the 
hopeless  answer ;  "  it  will  only  keep  me  from  sleeping." 
And  the  writer,  hearing  of  his  action,  understood,  be- 
lieved him  conscientious  and  sincere,  and  though  griev- 
ing deeply,  blamed  him  not  at  all. 

It  is  pleasant  to  preserve  from  oblivion  the  memory 
of  this  understanding  affection  and  the  bridge  that  it 
built  over  a  strong  current  of  separating  creeds ;  for  the 
air  of  ecclesiastical  dispute  is  often  redolent  of  other 
odours  than  that  of  the  charity  that  hopeth  and  believeth 
all  things.  To  the  end  of  his  life,  Dr.  Hogg  and  the 
Plymouthite  leaders  met  on  the  old  footing  of  respect 
and  affection,  and  his  last  letter  is  bright  with  the  hope 
of  finding  soon  some  common  platform  on  which  reunion 
will  be  possible.    Whether  he  would  eventually  have  sue- 


274  WINDS  OF  DOCTRINE 

ceeded  it  is  impossible  to  tell;  for  he  laid  down  unfin- 
ished a  task  which  none  could  take  from  his  hand,  to  enter 
the  wide  gates  of  the  Father's  house,  where  all  are 
welcome  who  love  Him,  and  where  theological  differ- 
ences vanish  in  the  clear  light  of  Truth. 


XVII 
THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 

Beyond  the  sighing  and  the  weeping 

I  shall  be  soon. 
Beyond  the  waking  and  the  sleeping, 
Beyond  the  sowing  and  the  reaping, 

I  shall  be  soon. 
Love,  rest  and  home,  sweet,  sweet  home; 
Lord,  tarry  not,  oh  tarry  not,  but  come. 

THE  traveller  in  the  borderland  of  life,  before  the 
veil  falls  from  the  unseen,  is  often  affected  like 
the  traveller  in  the  Sahara.  He  is  beguiled  by  a 
prospect  enticing  but  unreal.  Years  of  happy  usefulness 
seem  to  stretch  alluringly  before  him,  their  horizon 
vague  and  distant  but  their  details  vivid  and  clear,  like 
the  lakes  and  palm-trees  that  are  conjured  into  being  by 
the  mirage  of  the  desert.  The  river  of  death  by  no  sound 
of  rushing  waters  betrays  its  nearness,  and  his  feet  have 
already  reached  its  brink,  before  the  vision  vanishes  to 
reveal  the  unexplored  stretches  of  eternity. 

Through  such  a  borderland  Dr.  Hogg  now  travelled, 
drinking  to  the  full  the  joy  of  life  and  eager  as  ever  to 
make  the  most  of  its  opportunities. 

Once  some  one  in  his  presence  desired  a  recipe  for 
arousing  ambition.  "  I  have  one,"  he  said  impulsively, 
but  when  asked  what  it  was  he  shyly  parried  the  question. 
"  I  think  you  know  it  yourself,"  was  his  only  answer. 
His  smile  however  was  expressive,  and  his  life  and  teach- 
ing eloquent.    "  With  the  King  uncrowned  whose  right  it 

275 


276  THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 

is  to  reign,  what  man  who  has  tasted  the  joy  of  His  salva- 
tion can  play  with  life's  gifts  or  feel  satisfied  with  low 
achievement?"  Such  was  the  feeling  that  ruled  him, 
and  his  public  addresses  and  private  thought  laid  increas- 
ing emphasis  in  these  closing  years  on  the  two  ideas  thus 
indissolubly  linked,  the  "  Kingdom  of  Christ "  and 
"  service." 

He  was  erect  and  strong  as  ever,  but  his  hair  was 
creeping  farther  from  his  forehead  and  grey  mingling 
greatly  with  the  black.  At  last  there  came  to  him  a  day 
when  he  realised  with  a  sudden  shock  that  he  had  already 
lived  longer  than  his  father.  The  fact  appeared  incredible. 
It  seemed  to  him  but  yesterday  that  he  had  first  entered 
Assiut,  and  he  felt  in  heart  no  older  now  than  then.  The 
boyish  impulse  still  lingered,  as  he  walked  along  the 
river-bank,  to  run  down  and  up  again  for  sheer  joy  of 
motion,  and  let  him  have  his  family  once  more  around 
him  and  in  his  ears  the  music  and  singing  that  he  loved, 
and  he  was  young  enough  still  for  the  idle  wish  that  his 
days  might  remain  ever  unchanged. 

"  Yet  it  cannot  be,"  he  wrote,  "  one  generation  cometh 
and  another  goeth,  and  we  are  of  the  generation  that 
goes  " ;  knowing  which,  with  his  ruling  passion  strong 
upon  him,  his  mind  and  his  prayers  became  greatly 
occupied,  not  with  death  and  the  other  world,  but  with 
the  years  that  he  pictured  before  him,  and  how  they 
were  to  be  laid  out  to  the  best  advantage  for  the  mis- 
sion to  which  he  belonged  and  the  churches  and  schools 
of  its  planting. 

The  Protestant  community  was  calling  out  insistently 
for  Christian  literature,  and  in  spite  of  that  call,  the  fruit 
of  his  overwork  in  thirty-nine  Arabic  manuscripts — 
original,  translated,  or  compiled — was  lying  idle  in  his 
desk  for  lack  of  time  and  means  to  prepare  it  for  public 


UNPUBLISHED  WRITINGS  277 

use.  Only  nine  of  these  manuscripts  had  ever  been  pub- 
lished, and  these  were  out  of  print.  Fourteen  were  in- 
complete and  all  required  revision,  some  entire  re-writing, 
to  fit  them  for  publication,  each  one  having  been  called 
into  being  to  meet  the  immediate  need  of  some  special 
class  of  men.  Only  the  pressure  of  these  passing  claims 
had  made  it  possible  for  him  to  create  such  documents 
amid  the  confused  demands  of  mission  life.  To  perfect 
them  for  permanent  use  he  needed  leisure  and  a  climate 
less  inimical  to  nerves  and  brain. 

Would  it  not  be  wise  in  the  future  to  consecrate  his 
summers  in  some  healthful  and  cool  retreat  to  the  per- 
fecting of  this  harvest  of  his  past,  which  ungarnered 
must  be  lost  for  ever  to  the  King's  service? 

In  such  a  question  the  problem  of  his  family  future  was- 
involved,  and  a  definite  pronouncement  was  necessary 
both  from  the  mission  and  the  Board.  He  concluded 
therefore  to  write  to  them  fully  and  frankly  of  the  mat- 
ter, and  having  done  so  a  sense  of  detachment  fell  upon 
him  and  he  could  peacefully  await  their  decision,  confident 
that  God  would  guide,  and  willing  to  follow  His  finger 
though  it  should  point  to  continued  separation  "  even  in 
Khartum." 

During  his  last  journey  on  the  Nile  these  thoughts 
engaged  him.  Though  a  theological  class,  evangelistic 
work,  and  lengthened  correspondence  on  Plymouthism 
with  the  pastor  of  Luxor,  divided  hi  energies,  he  found 
many  an  opportunity  for  silent  musing.  His  red-letter  days 
(the  twenty-eighth  anniversary  of  his  arrival  in  Egypt, 
his  silver  wedding-day,  and  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary 
of  the  rescue  from  the  deep)  were  all  kept  with  peculiar 
sacredness,  as  under  a  starry  sky  he  paced  the  deck  alone, 
his  thoughts  roaming  afar  over  the  ocean  and  across  the 
years. 


278  THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 

The  wedding-day  demanded  a  memento  in  silver,  but 
he  added  a  curious  gift,  knowing  it  to  be  one  his  wife 
would  value  at  its  personal  cost — an  Arabic  psalter,  newly 
published  with  tunes  printed  in  both  notations,  each  psalm 
analysed  in  a  rhythmic  heading,  and  arranged  in  suitable 
paragraphs,  whose  subjects  were  clearly  indicated  to  aid 
in  the  selection  of  passages  appropriate  to  the  demand 
of  the  hour.  In  the  translation  of  the  psalms  he  had  had 
no  part.  For  the  rest  Dr.  Lansing,  while  knowing  nothing 
of  music,  had  shared  the  responsibility ;  but  the  bulk  of 
the  labour  was  necessarily  his  own,  and  he  had  expended 
upon  it  without  grudging,  an  amount  of  time,  care,  study, 
and  strenuous  toil,  which  only  a  pioneer  in  sUch  forms 
of  service  can  conceive. 

On  his  return  to  Assiut,  another  of  his  red-letter  days 
was  more  publicly  celebrated — the  twentieth  anniversary 
of  the  first  arrival  of  the  mission  party,  on  February  21, 
1865  ^o  establish  a  permanent  outpost  in  Upper  Egypt. 
God  had  blessed  the  weak  venture  abundantly,  and  its  re- 
sults were  now  scattered  far  and  wide  over  the  land.  In 
reminiscent  mood  he  wrote  to  his  wife  and  children  on  the 
changes  the  twenty  years  had  wrought.  He  recalled  the 
river  journeys  of  the  pioneers  of  Upper  Egypt,  Dr.  Lan- 
sing, Rev.  Mr.  McCague,  and  Lord  and  Lady  Aberdeen, 
the  influences  they  had  stirred  into  being  by  the  Bibles 
they  sold  and  the  message  they  preached,  his  own  keen 
joy  in  that  early  success,  and  the  emotion  called  forth 
by  the  reception  awaiting  him  when  he  too  was  privileged 
to  sail  to  Egypt's  limits  on  the  same  errand.  But  he  re- 
called too  the  strength  of  the  apprehension  that  weighted 
each  worker's  heart  as  he  faced  northward,  the  longing 
for  some  more  permanent  form  of  effort,  the  knowledge 
that  unless  supported  by  miraculous  power  the  influence 
they  had  exerted  must  prove  fleeting  and  the  trace  of 


THE  HARVEST  OF  A  LIFE  279 

their  work  be  effaced,  like  the  track  of  the  "  Ibis  "  on  the 
waters  its  passage  had  disturbed. 

And  now  at  fifty-five  points  that  they  had  passed  on 
their  pioneer  journeys  the  Gospel  was  plainly  preached 
Sabbath  after  Sabbath  and  night  after  night,  to  thousands 
of  men  and  women  of  whom  1,842  had  deliberately  taken 
upon  themselves  vows  of  allegiance  to  Christ.  The  rate 
of  progress  had  became  so  rapid  that  of  these  fifty-five 
evangelistic  light-centres  twenty-seven  were  the  fruitage 
of  the  last  five  years.  Moreover  the  sale  of  Scriptures  and 
religious  books  had  continued  in  steady  increase,  doubling 
every  five  years,  and  attaining  for  the  final  five  a  daily 
average  of  over  forty-one  volumes. 

Every  large  Sabbath  Market  but  one  had  been  trans- 
ferred to  a  week-day,  many  places  of  worship  had  been 
built,  and  over  $36,000  contributed  by  the  people  for 
religious  purposes. 

In  the  realm  of  education  the  fruit  of  the  crucial  move 
southward  was  equally  striking.  Dr.  Hogg  in  1865,  on  the 
opening  day  of  the  new  school  in  his  renovated  stable, 
had  enrolled  four  boys ;  now  338  students  were  receiving 
a  Christian  education  in  an  attractive  and  substantial 
college,  well  built  and  well  conducted,  under  the  careful 
management  of  competent  American  colleagues  and  a 
loyal  Egyptian  staff. 

During  that  slow  evolution  43  smaller  Evangelical 
schools  and  8  Coptic  schools  had  sprung  into  being  in 
Upper  Egypt,  and  the  parent  institution  had  under  the 
strongest  religious  influences  trained  and  sent  forth  the 
teachers  that  manned  them.  These  were  now  90  in  num- 
ber, and  all  had  been  drilled  even  in  advanced  studies, 
while  in  1865,  for  lack  of  native  helpers,  the  teaching  not 
only  of  Arabic  grammar  and  arithmetic  but  of  the  very 
alphabet  itself  had  often  fallen  to  the  lot  of  the  mis- 


280  THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 

sionary.  Nor  were  pastors  and  teachers  the  only  fruit 
of  the  College.  So  thorough  had  been  the  education  im- 
parted that  everywhere  its  pupils  were  in  demand.  In-  i 
terpreters  in  the  British  Army,  station-masters,  telegraph 
workers  and  almost  every  clerk  in  the  Postal  and  Steam- 
boat services  of  Upper  Egypt,  hailed  it  as  their  Alma 
Mater,  and  claimed  its  founder  as  their  teacher  or  as  one 
by  whom  their  teachers  had  been  taught. 

What  had  been  accomplished  meanwhile  for  woman  was 
evidenced  by  the  Egyptian  ladies  who  presided  at  the 
celebration  feast.  Here  was  a  type  of  Eastern  woman- 
hood which  without  noise  or  contest  could  attain  to  liberty 
and  compel  respect,  and  whose  education  was  the  fruit  of 
a  sister  institution  that  had  arisen  side  by  side  with  Assiut 
College,  and  owed  its  being  chiefly  to  the  labours  of  Miss 
McKown,  another  of  the  little  mission  party  of  1865. 

Under  Miss  McKown's  zealous  and  efificient  care  a 
flourishing  boarding  and  day  school  had  won  its  way  into 
popular  esteem,  and  on  New  Year's  Day  Dr.  Hogg  had 
been  able  to  brighten  for  her  the  opening  year,  as  in 
Alexandria  she  sat  with  bandaged  eyes  on  the  threshold 
of  night,  with  telegraphic  tidings  that  he  and  his  col- 
leagues had  after  indescribable  manoeuvres  succeeded  in 
securing  for  her  a  long-sought  site  for  a  new  building. 
Now  on  this  twentieth  anniversary  of  her  first  arrival  at 
Assiut  the  camels  were  carrying  to  the  chosen  spot  the 
first  loads  of  building  material  for  the  Pressley  Memorial 
Institute,  the  promised-land  of  her  dreams  which  she 
would  ere  long  enter  but  never  with  the  eyes  of  the  flesh 
behold  complete.  The  fiat  of  total  blindness  had  not  yet 
fallen  upon  her,  however,  to  darken  this  day  of  retrospect 
and  hope,  and  its  celebration  formed  a  happy  close  to 
Dr.  Hogg's  life  of  separation  from  his  family. 

Three  weeks  later  he  was  journeying  joyfully  homeward 


LAST  VISIT  TO  SCOTLAND  281 

under  instructions  to  spend  six  months  in  Scotland  in  the 
preparation  of  Arabic  tracts  on  the  nature  and  work  of 
the  Church,  his  general  plan  for  the  future  summers  hav- 
ing received  informal  sanction,  with  Ramleh  as  his  prob- 
able place  of  retreat.  He  reached  Edinburgh  early  in 
April  and  was  never  again  separated  from  his  wife  and 
children  till  he  left  them  to  join  the  rest  of  the  family  in 
their  heavenly  home. 

The  years  of  loneliness  had  strangely  enriched  him. 
They  had  given  him  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  his 
fellow-workers  at  Assiut  by  rendering  him  more  de- 
pendent on  their  sympathy  and  aid,  "  I  admire  them 
the  more  the  better  I  know  them,"  had  been  his  testimony. 
"  They  are  a  splendid  staff  of  workers,  men  and  women 
both."  And  there  is  a  touch  of  pride  in  his  reference  to 
his  "  noble  young  colleagues,"  as  he  tells  of  the  place  they 
are  taking  in  the  work.  More  than  once  in  his  closing 
years  he  suggested  handing  over  the  principalship  to  his 
successor ;  and  though  the  younger  man  refused  the 
honour  till  the  death  of  his  senior  thrust  it  upon  him,  the 
incident  remains  the  strongest  proof  possible  of  the  trust 
and  appreciation  that  intercourse  had  engendered. 

Meanwhile  separating  seas  had  but  drawn  the  tighter 
his  family  ties  through  the  medium  of  a  full  and  free 
correspondence.  His  home-budgets,  with  their  regular 
contributions  from  each  of  his  children,  he  had  regarded 
as  a  weekly  feast  to  be  proudly  shared  whenever  he  could 
find  a  willing  victim,  and  to  be  answered  with  equal  ful- 
ness and  a  dexterous  manipulation  of  the  details  of  daily 
life  to  suit  the  varying  ages  and  tastes  of  his  correspon- 
dents. The  results  were  evident  on  his  arrival,  and  he 
marvelled  and  gave  thanks. 

His  surroundings  were  now  ideal  for  the  success  of  lit- 
erary work,  but  ill-health  soon  dogged  his  efforts  and  con- 


282  THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 

centration  of  mind  became  often  a  physical  impossibility. 
While  in  Scotland  he  wrote  340  pages  of  Arabic  on  the 
subjects  assigned  him,  but  he  failed  to  complete  his  task, 
and  was  so  dissatisfied  with  his  accomplishment  that  he 
desired  to  remould  the  whole.  It  had  been  decided  that 
at  the  close  of  the  summer  all  save  his  eldest  son  should 
return  with  him  to  Egypt,  but  as  his  troubles  increased  a 
minor  operation  became  necessary  which  left  him  pros- 
trate, and  his  immediate  future  doubtful.  Medical  con- 
sent for  the  suggested  move  was  at  last  secured,  the 
physicians  rightly  discerning  that  with  proper  precau- 
tions the  missionary  would  recover  tone  and  strength 
more  rapidly  in  the  land  that  absorbed  his  interest.  The 
mere  prospect  of  return  acted  upon  him  like  a  charm,  and 
before  Egypt  was  reached  he  seemed  remade. 

Once  more  in  Assiut,  the  condition  laid  upon  him  that 
no  hard  work  should  be  attempted  was  naturally  for- 
gotten, and  he  soon  launched  forth  on  a  full  tide  of  mis- 
sionary activity.  Sabbaths  and  sometimes  Saturdays  were 
spent  in  village  preaching,  three  or  four  hours  of  teach- 
ing were  undertaken  daily  for  the  college,  and  amongst 
other  irons  in  his  fire  were  the  translation  of  a  book  on 
logic  for  one  of  his  classes  and  the  revisal  for  the  press 
of  a  theological  textbook  he  had  already  translated. 

During  a  short  vacation  in  January  he  became  absorbed 
in  another  literary  scheme  of  which  he  writes  in  some  de- 
tail to  Dr.  Watson  in  his  last  letter  preserved  to  us.  He 
had  been  studying  for  some  time  with  growing  interest 
Bryennius's  edition  of  the  Didache  or  The  Teaching 
of  the  Twelve  Apostles,  an  ancient  manual  of  Church 
ordinances  and  moral  precepts  the  manuscript  of  which 
had  lately  been  discovered  in  Constantinople.  He  had 
shared  his  spoils  with  his  Plymouthite  friends,  criticising 
their  views  from  the  new  basis  thus  supplied,  and  had 


THE  "DIDACHE"  28S 

found  them  interested,  arrested,  and  hopeful  of  securing 
some  new  footing  on  which  reunion  might  become  possi- 
ble. What  had  proved  valuable  to  them,  he  believed, 
might  prove  equally  so  in  relation  to  the  Coptic  Church. 
His  plan  was  to  print  in  parallel  columns  translations  of 
the  Didache  and  of  the  corresponding  portions  of  the 
Book  of  the  Coptic  Order  and  of  the  Seventh  Book  of 
the  Apostolical  Constitution,  and  he  believed  that  such  a 
work  would  prove  in  many  respects  a  thunderbolt  to  the 
Coptic  hierarchy.  It  would  be  impossible  to  complete  it 
while  college  remained  in  session,  but  that  did  not  hinder 
him  from  running  races  with  time  in  the  preliminary 
stages  of  progress. 

On  a  Saturday  night,  February  13,  1886,  he  finished 
a  portion  of  the  work,  which  had  necessitated  the  use  of  a 
precious  document  venerated  by  the  Copts,  the  loan  of 
which  he  had  secured  through  an  influential  Coptic  friend. 
It  had  been  a  strenuous  day  and  he  was  to  preach  an 
important  sermon  on  the  morrow,  but  he  had  been  un- 
willing to  close  the  week  till  he  should  complete  this 
portion  of  his  task.  About  11  p.m.  he  joined  his  wife  and 
daughters,  tired  but  happy,  with  the  Arabic  word  "  Kha- 
las  "  upon  his  lips.  His  literary  work  was  indeed  "  fin- 
ished."   He  had  laid  down  his  pen  forever. 

Sabbath  was  a  day  for  which  he  had  long  waited.  The 
junior  class  of  theology  contained  at  this  time  but  two 
students.  Government  positions  lucrative  and  honourable 
were  now  available  for  any  college  graduate,  and  the 
salaries  that  some  teachers  could  secure  were  far  beyond 
the  reach  of  any  pastor.  What  wonder  that  the  chang- 
ing conditions  of  Egypt  should  have  turned  ambition  into 
fresh  channels  of  usefulness,  and  created  a  drift  away 
from  the  ministry  ?  Dr.  Hogg  viewed  the  situation  with 
sympathy  mingled  with  deep  concern.    He  believed  that 


284  THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 

the  new  opportunities  were  deafening  many  a  young  man 
to  the  claim  of  a  service  that  would  be  a  greater  blessing 
to  his  country  and  develop  in  him  a  higher  type  of  man- 
hood. A  sermon  had  long  been  burning  in  his  soul,  and 
at  last  the  necessary  absence  of  the  native  pastor  of 
Assiut  gave  him  his  coveted  opportunity. 

To  an  audience  composed  largely  of  college  students 
he  delivered  his  last  testimony,  with  a  conviction  that  was 
a  legacy  from  the  experience  of  a  life-time — "  He  that 
chooseth  the  office  of  a  bishop  chooseth  a  good  thing." 
The  sermon  made  a  deep  impression  on  the  audience,  but 
drained  the  speaker's  strength.  An  unexpected  funeral, 
a  Sabbath-school  service,  and  the  entrance  of  visitors, 
combined  to  consume  the  remainder  of  the  day  and  to 
render  rest  impossible.  By  evening  he  was  prostrate  and 
on  Monday,  while  he  dragged  himself  through  his  accus- 
tomed work,  he  felt  unable  to  break  his  fast  till  sunset. 
A  violent  pain  soon  seized  him,  and  his  wife  discovered 
him  in  his  bedroom  writhing  in  agony  on  the  floor. 

The  days  that  followed  were  full  of  growing  anxiety 
and  grief  to  those  who  watched  and  nursed  him  and  to 
an  ever  increasing  circle  of  inquiring  friends.  For  a  time 
the  possibility  of  a  fatal  ending  seemed  past  belief.  His 
sudden  seizure  was  by  no  means  unprecedented,  and  his 
doctor's  prophecies  encouraged  hope.  The  utter  collapse 
of  power  was  pathetic  in  a  frame  so  strong,  inhabited  by 
a  spirit  so  virile,  but  the  patient  had  marvellous  recupera- 
tive force,  and  it  seemed  reasonable  to  expect  that  as 
soon  as  he  was  able  to  retain  any  nourishment  strength 
would  begin  to  return.  The  period  of  nausea  passed, 
however,  and  no  improvement  followed.  Sleep  became 
the  next  disideratum.  Let  that  be  but  secured  and  Nature 
aided  by  the  remedies  employed  would  surely  do  the 
great  Healer's  work.     But  a  second  time  hope  proved 


THE  LAST  DAYS  285 

beguiling,  for  when  sleep  came  it  was  no  refreshing 
slumber  but  a  dull  coma  that  evidenced  the  subtle  progress 
of  disease. 

A  veil  of  silence  and  separation  speedily  enshrouded 
the  sufferer  in  its  folds.  Even  from  the  first,  little  inter- 
course had  been  possible.  When  pain  abated,  sores  had 
broken  out  in  the  patient's  mouth  and  nostrils,  and  these 
along  with  his  great  weakness  rendered  speech  a  burden. 
Still  a  cool  wet  cloth  on  his  brow  or  the  bathing  of  his 
hands  and  arms  would  often  call  forth  expressions  of 
delight,  and  for  the  first  ten  days  he  showed  great  enjoy- 
ment when  his  wife  or  daughters  sang  for  him  his  fav- 
ourite hymns,  and  always  begged  to  have  the  doors 
opened  when  his  children  gathered  around  the  old  har- 
monium for  their  daily  singing  lesson.  "  The  lines  have 
fallen  unto  me  in  pleasant  places,"  he  whispered  once ; 
and  again,  "  I  did  not  know  it  could  be  so  nice  to  be 
ill." 

In  the  shadow  of  sorrow  the  mission  circle  proved 
anew  the  strength  and  worth  of  the  ties  uniting  them,  and 
the  wife  and  daughters  were  surrounded  from  first  to  last 
by  an  inventive  sympathy  that  left  no  possible  channel 
of  helpfulness  unutilised. 

On  the  second  Wednesday  evening  death  seemed  im- 
minent. For  a  time  both  husband  and  wife  thought  that 
the  hour  of  parting  had  come,  and  though  the  shadow 
passed  and  for  three  days  the  sick  man  lingered,  the  feel- 
ing had  not  been  wholly  unfounded.  He  had  now  reached 
a  region  where  his  soul  must  dwell  alone,  and  of  which 
he  could  give  no  account  to  those  who  yearned  to  follow 
him  even  to  the  river's  brink.  Once  when  his  wife  spoke 
to  him  of  the  joy  that  lay  before  him,  he  seemed  to  be 
struggling  to  respond,  but  he  could  only  articulate  faintly, 
"  I  have  no  power."    The  brain  had  finished  its  work,  and 


286  THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 

the  life  that  he  had  Hved  must  remain  his  answer  to  the 
questions  that  loving  hearts  might  seek  to  ask. 

Meanwhile  on  Friday  evening  a  special  physician  had 
arrived  for  consultation,  but  "  Dr.  Hogg's  condition  hope- 
less "  was  the  word  sent  back  to  Cairo.  Another  night 
and  day  dragged  slowly  past.  Dr.  Watson  and  Dr. 
Harvey  journeyed  south  still  hoping  against  hope,  cling- 
ing to  the  thought  that  God  who  doeth  all  things  well 
could  not  will  the  death  of  one  whose  life  seemed  so 
necessary  to  the  progress  of  His  cause.  Two  hours  after 
their  arrival,  however,  as  they  stood  with  the  family  and 
friends  around  the  bed  of  their  unconscious  comrade, 
God  opened  for  him  noiselessly  the  gates  of  eternal  day, 
and  he  passed  without  sadness  of  farewell  out  of  weak- 
ness and  suffering  into  the  joy  of  his  Lord. 

To  some  who  spent  the  next  sad  hours  in  the  mission 
house,  and  who  had  never  seen  the  East  bewailing  her 
dead,  it  seemed  almost  as  though  the  wheels  of  time  had 
rolled  back  centuries.  Was  it  not  thus  that  grief  had 
spread  that  fatal  night  .when  Egypt's  first-born  was 
stricken?  Out  of  the  stillness  came  the  terrible  sounds 
of  grief,  a  confused  and  pitiful  wail  mingled  with  the 
uncontrollable  sobbing  of  strong  men.  The  people  were 
mourning  now  for  a  father  taken  from  them  in  his  prime. 
Their  sorrow  had  broken  out  with  sudden  violence  at 
the  very  door  of  the  stricken  house,  in  the  court,  in  the 
street,  and  in  the  girls'  school  adjoining.  When  kind 
friends  strove  to  restore  quiet  in  the  immediate  vicinity, 
the  air  seemed  still  full  of  weeping,  and  through  the 
silent  hours  of  dark  the  wind  bore  back  the  sound,  rising 
and  falling  faintly  like  distant  waves  of  the  sea,  and 
breathing  that  note  of  hopelessness  that  seems  to  haunt 
the  dirges  of  the  East. 

Only  within  the  house  all  was  quiet.     The  last  hymn 


THE  FUNERAL  SERVICE  287 

to  which  the  dying  man  had  listened  breathed  the  spirit 
that  now  ruled. 


"  If  thou  shouldst  call  me  to  resign, 
What  most  I  prize — it  ne'er  was  mine, 
I  only  yield  Thee  what  was  Thine. 
Thy  will  be  done." 

She  who  sang  it  had  long  since  learned  the  secret  of  such 
resignation,  and  in  the  days  that  followed  she  was  the 
people's  comforter,  the  strengthener  of  their  faith  and 
the  restorer  of  their  drooping  courage.  Of  the  deep  and 
widespread  need  for  such  comfort  and  encouragement 
the  months  that  followed  were  to  bring  ceaseless  proof, 
and  from  the  first  it  was  abundantly  evident. 

The  night  of  weeping  ushered  in  such  a  Sabbath  as 
Assiut  had  never  witnessed.  At  both  services  the  church 
was  full  to  suffocation,  and  the  Mohammedan  Governor 
of  the  province  along  with  his  suite  occupied  a  foremost 
place  in  the  audiepce. 

In  addition  to  the  thousand  packed  within  the  church 
almost  an  equal  number  were  gathered  without  even  in 
the  morning,  and  during  the  funeral  service  in  the  after- 
noon a  crowd  of  men  filled  not  only  the  large  space  in 
front  of  the  building  but  even  the  streets  on  either  side, 
Protestants,  Copts,  Moslems,  and  Greeks  united  for  once 
by  a  common  bond  in  their  respect  and  admiration  for  a 
man  whose  life  had  overcome  hatred  and  scorn  and  cre- 
ated a  new  ideal  of  goodness  among  people  of  every  con- 
dition of  life. 

The  service  within  was  conducted  by  the  Egyptian  pas- 
tor assisted  by  some  of  the  missionaries,  and  at  the  end 
the  people  petitioned  to  be  allowed  to  look  for  the  last 
time  on  the  face  of  their  friend.    "  How  they  loved  this 


288  THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 

man,"  the  Governor  remarked  as  he  watched  that  moving 
throng,  and  he  and  his  suite  joined  in  the  procession  that 
followed  the  casket,  and  walked  behind  it  to  the  limits 
of  the  town.  In  that  procession  were  many  of  the  wealth- 
iest citizens  of  Assiut  as  well  as  its  aristocracy  of  mental 
and  moral  force.  Many  poor  were  there,  many  villagers 
who  hearing  the  news  had  walked  or  ridden  from  sur- 
rounding towns.  A  company  of  British  soldiers  sent  by 
the  commander  of  the  Assiut  forces  prevented  a  complete 
blockage  of  the  road  and  preserved  order. 

The- way  to  the  Christian  burying-ground  lies  along 
the  edge  of  a  strip  of  desert  at  the  foot  of  limestone  hills. 
The  place  itself  might  look  grim  and  forbidding  to  a 
Western  eye,  for  it  is  without  flowers  or  shrubs  and  each 
grave,  an  exact  copy  of  its  neighbour,  rises  bald  and 
gaunt  out  of  the  rough  ground  with  none  of  those 
tokens  of  loving  remembrance  that  are  often  so  eloquent 
in  a  Western  cemetery.  But  the  spot  has  the  inalienable 
beauty  that  belongs  to  sunshine,  solitude,  and  stillness. 
There  is  no  sound  but  the  endless  song  of  the  lark,  or 
the  call  of  a  hawk  far  up  in  the  blue.  On  the  one  side 
stretches  the  emerald  plain,  on  the  other  runs  the  Libyan 
range,  every  detail  of  cave  and  rock  standing  out  with 
startling  distinctness  in  the  clear  air.  Under  one's  feet 
is  the  pure  sand  of  the  desert,  to  which  twenty  years 
before  the  missionary  had  committed  his  firstborn. 

That  act  had  then  seemed  to  him  significant,  consecrat- 
ing to  him  for  life  and  labour  the  whole  district,  and  for 
death  and  rest  the  spot  it  had  made  dear.  From  that 
time  it  had  been  his  hope  to  spend  his  life  for  Egypt  in 
the  sphere  where  his  early  hardships  had  been  borne,  and 
to  be  buried  here  at  last  before  the  shades  of  evening 
should  begin  to  gather  upon  him.  His  wish  was  now 
fulfilled,  and  though  at  noon  the  call  had  come,  it  had 


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THE  GRAVE  289 

found  him  ready,  ready  for  rest  and  peace,  ready  also  to 
work  on,  serve  ever,  there  as  here. 

Mr.  Wissa  Buktor,  a  life-long  friend  of  the  missionary, 
begged  to  be  allowed  to  assume  all  the  expenses  con- 
nected with  his  burial.  The  tomb  was  his  gift,  and  the 
monument  that  marks  the  spot  is  his  loving  memorial. 
It  is  a  large  solid  erection  of  white  marble,  with  elaborate 
inscriptions  in  Arabic  and  English,  and  decorations  in  red 
and  blue  and  gold.  The  irregular  English  lettering  was 
typical  of  the  time,  while  the  oriental  colouring,  now  faded 
and  subdued,  acquired  a  peculiar  fitness  in  the  light  of  the 
life  the  stone  commemorated.  For  such  a  life  no  monu- 
ment would  have  been  suitable  that  did  not  proclaim 
itself  Egyptian.  Four  acacia  trees  now  shelter  the  tomb 
and  by  their  grateful  shade  add  a  touch  of  softness  that 
at  the  time  was  lacking. 

The  funeral  Sabbath  was  the  first  of  many  days  of 
mourning  during  which  in  the  mission  house  the  people 
came  and  went  in  an  incessant  stream,  entering  often  in 
tears  to  leave  quieted  and  subdued,  resting  in  the  thought 
that  God  could  make  no  mistake. 

A  letter  written  at  the  time  says : 

"  It  is  impossible  to  give  you  any  idea  of  the  sympathy 
we  have  been  shown  by  all  and  sundry.  They  look 
upon  the  sorrow  as  as  much  theirs  as  ours.  Protestants, 
Copts,  and  Moslems  unite  in  mourning  the  death.  Mos- 
lems are  seen  sometimes  w^eeping  in  the  streets,  and  they 
comfort  themselves  with  the  thought  that  he  is  in  Para- 
dise. Two  Moslems  began  fighting  in  the  street  as  to 
whether  he,  being  a  Christian,  could  go  to  Paradise. 
They  came  to  blows  and  were  taken  up  by  the  police. 
The  one  who  had  said  he  would  go  to  heaven  pleaded  his 
case,  and  the  answer  was,  '  True  enough.  He  was  a 
better  man  than  our  Kadi.'  On  Sabbath  the  Mudir, 
in  answer  to  one  who  remarked  to  him,  '  He  was  a  good 
man  that/  said,  '  Yes,  the  first  man  in  all  Egypt.'  " 


290  THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 

The  death  came  upon  the  whole  Protestant  community 
with  the  shock  of  a  thunderbolt.  Even  those  who  had 
known  the  full  gravity  of  the  illness  had  been  incredulous 
of  the  blow  that  was  to  fall  upon  them. 

"  The  whole  mission  was  astonished,  stunned,  dis- 
mayed. The  native  brethren  from  one  end  of  the  country 
to  the  other  wept  as  for  a  father,  while  many  were  so 
disheartened  that  they  began  to  think  that  the  cause  of 
truth  was  lost.  In  some  places  the  people  were  saved 
from  utter  confusion  and  despair  only  by  the  historic 
saying,  '  God  is  not  dead.'  " 

Dr.  Lansing  writing  a  month  after  the  event  refers  to  it 
as  "  that  staggering  blow  ...  a  blow  between  the  eyes, 
that  kills  " ;  and  for  him  it  had  so  shattered  some  secret 
spring  of  youthfulness  that  henceforth  age  pressed  upon 
him  subtly. 

"  It  is  a  dream,"  he  says,  "  I  cannot  yet  realise  it.  For 
thirty  years  have  we  planned  and  worked  together  in 
this  valley  of  the  Nile,  and  is  it  over?  When  I  think  of 
it  or  attempt  to  write  of  it  to  others,  my  heart  begins  to 
flutter  again  and  I  must  desist." 

When  Presbytery  met  "  a  feeling  of  irrepressible  loss 
filled  the  heart  of  every  member  and  a  sense  of  utter  help- 
lessness manifested  itself  in  every  prayer."  But  "  a  sense 
of  duty  to  Christ  and  His  Church  and  Cause,  and  of 
God's  special  grace  gradually  aided  them."  Resisting  the 
paralysis  of  sorrow,  they  set  themselves  to  awaken  the 
stricken  Church  from  her  grief  to  face  the  demands  of 
the  hour.  A  circular  letter  was  sent  throughout  the  land 
as  a  rallying  call  to  the  people,  urging  them  to  hear  in 
their  strange  visitation  the  voice  of  Jehovah  repeating 
for  them  His  command  to  Joshua  and  Israel  with  its  ac- 


A  RALLYING  CALL  291 

companying  message  of  good  cheer.  "  Moses  my  serv- 
ant is  dead.  Now  therefore  go  over  this  Jordan  thou 
and  the  people,  unto  the  land  which  I  do  give  to  them. 
Be  strong  and  of  a  good  courage.  Be  not  afraid  neither 
be  thou  dismayed,  for  the  Lord  thy  God  is  with  thee 
whither-so-ever  thou  goest." 


EPILOGUE     ' 

TO  write  an  epitaph  as  its  chooser  willed,  we  have 
told  the  story  of  his  life.  Will  the  epitaph  so 
written  touch  springs  of  action?  He  willed  that 
in  that  epitaph  what  he  did  should  be  lost  to  sight  in  what 
he  strove  to  do:  what  he  was,  in  the  convictions  that 
moved  him.  What  were  those  convictions?  That  we 
must  be  willing  to  sacrifice  all  for  the  creation  of  a 
Church  that  will  prove  adequate  to  the  task  of  bringing 
the  Gospel  within  the  reach  of  every  soul.  That  the 
adequacy  of  the  instrument  will  depend,  not  upon  its 
size,  but  upon  its  type.  That  all  success  will  prove  but 
a  stumbling-block  that  is  numerical,  not  spiritual. 

What  type  of  Church  was  the  ideal  of  his  dreams  and 
of  his  toil  ?  A  Church  "  whose  raison-d'etre  is  to  carry 
on  the  work  of  Christ  in  the  world,"  whose  pastors  and 
elders  are  "  a  general  and  his  staff  leading  the  hosts  of 
light  out  against  the  hosts  of  darkness,"  and  between 
whose  members  and  other  men  lies  this  radical  distinc- 
tion, "  that  while  other  men  live  unto  themselves,  they 
live  not  unto  themselves  but  unto  Him  who  died  for 
them  and  rose  again." 

Has  his  epitaph  no  message  for  to-day?  "Methods 
change  but  principles  never."  So  long  as  the  goal  he 
strove  towards  is  still  unreached,  should  not  the  ques- 
tion be  repeated  with  the  changing  years  ?  "  What  to-day 
would  prove  the  most  speedy  and  effective  means  of  at- 
taining it?"  Should  it  not  be  regarded  as  the  question 
of  paramount  importance — a  question  to  be  faced  in- 
dividually by  every  church-member  and  collectively  by 

292 


EPILOGUE  293 

every  body  of  Christians,  in  a  spirit  expectant  of  new 
answers  for  new  conditions,  prepared  to  receive  God's 
answers  in  humble  and  self-denying  obedience? 

The  answer  of  God  to  our  searchings  might  mean  to 
the  Church  in  Christian  lands  such  gifts  of  men  and 
women  and  money  as  she  has  never  yet  offered  on  His 
altar.  It  might  mean  to  the  missionaries  of  her  sending 
the  abandonment  of  some  long-cherished  plans,  or  of 
some  forms  of  service  good  but  not  the  best.  It  might 
mean  to  the  churches  of  their  planting  searching  of 
heart,  the  purifying  of  communion  rolls,  a  parting  with 
this  world's  goods,  and  a  venture  of  faith  along  paths  of 
undreamed-of  labour. 

Whatever  God's  answer  be,  we  may  follow  without 
fear  the  pointing  of  His  finger,  assured  that  He  will 
guide  us  to  victory  and  everlasting  joy.  But  let  us  re- 
member that  no  worthy  goal  can  be  attained  without  con- 
centration of  endeavour,  and  that  those  who  would  be 
the  saviours  of  the  world  must  be  willing  to  tread  a 
path  that  leads  into  valleys  of  humiliation  and  up  heights 
of  sacrifice  in  the  footsteps  of  our  Master  Christ. 


DATES 

1833.  John  Hogg,  born  April  30,  near  Edinburgh. 

1842.  Employed  in  coal  mine. 

1848.  Joins  the  church. 

1849.  Enters  University  of  Edinburgh. 

1856.    Arrives  in  Alexandria,  6th  December.     Opens  a  school. 
i860.    Married  to  Miss  Bessie  Kay,  Edinburgh,  January  10. 

Shipwreck,  January  31.     Arrives  in  Alexandria,  March  18. 

Ordained  by  Presbytery  of  the  American    (United  Pres- 
byterian) Mission. 
1862.    First  extended  tour  on  the  Nile. 

Transferred  to  Cairo. 
1865.    Begins  vi^ork  at  Assiut,  February  21. 
1867.    Coptic  Patriarch  visits  Assiut. 

1870.  Dedication  of  new  Church  at  Assiut. 

1871.  First  College  building  erected. 

1872.  Visit  to  America. 

1874.  "  Preamble  and  Resolutions."    January. 

1875.  Staff  of  College  increased. 

1879.  Nile  work  increases — average  twelve  weeks  a  year. 

1882.  Arabi  Rebellion. 

1883.  Plymouthite  controversy;  pastor's  class. 
1885.  Death  of  Dr.  Hogg,  February  z"]. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abdullah  Nadim,  247 

Aberdeen,  Earl  of,  Nile  towns, 
86,  253;  at  Haddo  House, 
138;    letter    to,    237;    slaves, 

253 
Abnul,  172 
Abuna  Feltaos,  250 
Abutij,  171 

Aggressive  work,  170,  234 
Ahmed,  an  early  Mahdi,  126 
Aikman,  Dr.  Logan,  46 
Alexander,    Rev.    J.    R.,    D.D., 

206,  207,  225,  281 
Alexandria,  Protestant  College 
proposed,  46 ;  modified  plan, 
47,  50;  what  came  of  it,  57; 
threatened  massacre,  56 ; 
value  as  a  mission  centre,  58; 
Mr.  Hogg  located  in,  49-61, 
70-100,  232;  evacuation  sug- 
gested, 199;  massacre,  242; 
bombardment,  246 
Algiers,  54 

Allegheny,  U.  P.  Students,  79 
America :  Civil  War.  effects  of, 
78,  84,  120:  Dr.  Hogg's  visit, 
181 ;  see  also  U.  P.  Church 
of,  consul,  &c. 
Anglican  mission,  104 
Anniversaries,  277,  278-280 
"  Appeal  for  life,"  Dr.  Hogg's, 

194 
Arabian  Nights,  29 
Arabic,    study   of,    46,    52,    73 '> 
preaching,  74,  77^  80-83,  213 ; 
blind  type,  139:  for  Transla- 
tions see  Dr.  Hogg,  Literary 
work. 
Arabi    Pasha's   Rebellion,    239- 

247  ;  his  character,  246 
Armenian  Congregation,  138 
Arnold,  Matthew,  quoted,  70 
Arrack-drinking,  9\,  i55 


Assiut,  school  started  by  Mr. 
McCague,  86 ;  persecution, 
87;  Mr.  Hogg  settled  in,  125; 
Ahmed's  rising,  126 ;  cholera, 
136,  137,  269 ;  market  day 
changed,  169;  church  opened, 
170 ;  Mudir  of,  159,  168,  290; 
compared  with  Cairo,  206; 
see  Dr.  Hogg — in  Assiut. 
Assiut  Training  College,  school 
started,  128 ;  collecting  funds, 
139;  curriculum,  142;  finan- 
cial questions,  143-145; 
scheme  of  practical  train- 
ing, 145;  daily  programme, 
147;  Prince  of  Wales'  visit, 
164;  first  college  building 
erected  ;  "  the  College  shall 
be  built,  184;  appeal  to  Amer- 
ican Church,  191 ;  appeal  to 
Association,  197 ;  $10,000 
raised,  206;  staff  increased, 
206,  207 ;  Khedive's  visit, 
209;  ground  for  new  build- 
ing, 210;  position  at  Dr. 
Hogg's  death,  279-280 ;  staff, 
281 
Association    (Missionary) 

formed,  123   (note). 
Assyriology,  252 
Australian      appointment      de- 
clined, 194 
Ayloun,  Prof.  W.  E.,  34 
Azziyah,  220,  221 

Bahjoura,  Iman  at,  93 
Baker,  General,  256,  258 
Baker,  Sir  Samuel,  164 
Bakur,  172 
Bamba  joins  the  church,   113; 

marriage,  115-120;  see  Dhu- 

leep  Singh. 
Baring,  Sir  Evelyn,  256 


297 


298 


INDEX 


Barr,  Dr.,  letter  to,  220 
Bashetly,  Gergis,  158 
Beirut  press,  251 
Beirut   professorship   declined, 

180 
Bell,  Moberly,  252 
Beni,  Adi,  221 
Beni  Alage,  157 
Bible :  Coptic  version,  95 ;  bon- 
fire of,  157;  sale  of,  86,  91, 

104,  279 
Bible  Dictionary,   176 
Bishop,  see  Coptic  Church ;  Mr. 

Hogg  on  episcopacy,  144 
Blackie,  Professor,  252 
Blind,  industrial  work  for,  252 ; 

blind  type,  139 
Bonar's  Way  of  Peace,  148 
British  Occupation,  248;  policy, 

255,  257 ;  Foreign  Office,  224 ; 

share  in  dual  control,  242 
Brooks,  Phillips,  quoted,  124 
Browning,  E.  B.,  quoted,  62 
Browning,   Robert,  quoted,  85, 

175,  184 
Buktor,  Mr.  Wissa,  289 
Bulletins  of  Abdullah   Nadim, 

247 
Bunyan's    Pilgrim's    Progress, 

148 
Business  agent  for  mission,  85 

Cairns,  Rev.  D.  S.,  D.D.,  266- 
268 

Cairo,  Mr.  Hogg's  first  visit, 
58;  new  premises,  99;  Mr. 
Hogg  located  in,  100-123, 
176;  compared  with  Assiut, 
206;  massacre  expected,  248; 
see  also  Dr.  Hogg — In  Cairo. 

Calderwood,  Henry,  34 ;  Hand- 
book, 225 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  quoted,  49, 
239.  259 ;  his  student  days,  34 

Catholics,  158,  167 

Central  Africa,  evangelisation 
of,  251 

Cholera,  136,  269 

Christian  Instructor,  191 

Church,  type  of,  236-238,  392 

Clokey,  Dr.  Joseph,  182 


College,  see  Assiut  Training 
College. 

Congregation,  first,  105 

Communion  at  Luxor,  219 

Conscription,  155,  248 

Consul,  American,  107 

Coptic  Church :  described,  94- 
97;  its  regeneration  key  to 
Moslem  problem,  93,  97,  196; 
Patriarch's  measures  against 
Cairo  mission,  104-109;  mass 
movement  possible,  105 ; 
prayer  meeting  at  Patriarch- 
ate HI;  repressive  measures 
in  Faiyum,  121 ;  Copts  in 
Upper  Egypt,  124;  Patriarch 
in  Assiut,  154;  orders  Bible- 
study,  161 ;  Protestant  icono- 
clasts, 165-169;  friendly 
towards  College,  209;  at 
Ekhmim,  227;  at  Minya,  231 ; 
influence  of  Arabi  Rebellion, 
239,  249,  250 

"  Cornelia,"  s.s.,  66 

Corvee,  156 

Cromer,  Lord,  256 

Currency,  variety  of,  102 

Currie,  Rev.  Mr.,  160,  186 

Daily  meeting,  147 

Daily  programme,  146-149 

Dales,  Dr.,  letter  to,  r88 

Dales,  Miss,  72,  77 

Damietta,  88 

Darfur,  Sultan  of,  257 

Degree  of  D.D.  granted,  181 

Delta  described,  87 ;  first  river 
town,  88 

Dervish  Pasha,  242 

Desert,  265,  288 

Dhuleep  Singh,  marriage  of, 
116-119,  125;  visit  to,  138; 
letter  to,  163 

Didache,  282 

Disruption  of  Church  of  Scot- 
land, 34 

Doddridge's  "  Rise  and  Prog- 
ress," 30 

Dollar,   183,   229 

Dual  control,  242 

Duck  shooting,  88 


INDEX 


299 


DufFerin,  Lord,  255,  256 
Dunfermline,  41 

Eadie,  Dr.,  44 

Edinburgh,  33;  University,  34; 
Divinity  Hall  of  U.  P. 
Church,  44.  138,  181,  281 

Education  statistics,  279;  see 
also  Schools,  Assiut  Training 
College. 

Edward  VII,  King,  164 

Edward's   Commentary,  114 

Egypt :  population,  85  ;  config- 
uration, 87;  Egyptian  music, 
149,  150;  conscription  and 
forced  labour,  155 ;  flood  and 
drought,  225;  dual  control, 
242;  British  occupation,  248; 
see  Arabi. 

Ekhmim,  158;  "siege"  of,  226- 
230,  235,  270 

EUiot,  Sir  George,  252 

England,  Church  of,  104 

"  Epitaph,"  Dr.  Hogg's,  14,  202, 
292 

Esna,  169 

Evangelical  (Presbyterian) 

church  of  Egypt;  first  con- 
gregation, 105 ;  presbytery 
formed,  74;  signs  of  vitality, 
III ;  in  Upper  Egypt,  154. 173  ; 
Assiut  church,  170;  Presby- 
tery purely  Egyptian,  173 ; 
Plymouthite  controversy,  264- 
274;  eflfects  of  Arabi  Rebel- 
lion', 249,  250,  269;  statistics, 
279.  Meetings  of  Presby- 
tery, 123,  174,  234,  26s 

Evangelical  Alliance,  223 
Evangelisation  of  world  in  our 
generation,  236 

Ewing,  Rev.  Mr.,  100,  106,  120, 
246 

Excommunication,  106,  129,  157. 
I 59.   163 

Faiyum,  121 
"Falernian,"  244-246 

Fam,  159  r    ^  „ 

Financial    policy    of    College, 

143-145 


Fleas,  see  Vermin. 
Forced  labour,   156 
Friendship  on  the  mission  field, 

55 
From  Pharaoh  to  Fellah,  252 
Froude,  J.  A.,  quoted,  34 
Furlough,  in  Scotland,  138,  181, 
281;  in  Syria,  177;  in  Amer- 
ica, 181 

"  Galena,"  244 

George  Watson's  Hospital,  47 

Giffen,    Rev.    John,    D.D.,   206, 

207 
Girgeh,  126 
Girls'    schools,    in    Alexandria, 

56,  72,  79;  in  Cairo,  102;  in 

Assiut,  128,  280 
Gladsmuir  Grammar  School,  24 
Gladstone,  Mr.  255,  258 
Glasgow  Committee,  46 
Gordon,  General,  257,  258 

Halbeath,  47 
Hamilton,  Sir  Wm.,  34 
Hanna,  Mr.  Abuna,  172 
Hanna,   Rev.    Shenoodeh,   129, 
146,   157,   161,   172,   187,  215- 
218 
Haram,  see  Excommunication. 
Harvey,  Rev.  Dr.,  225,  286 
Heat,  132,  167,  214,  218,  226 
Henry,  Rev.  James,  45;  letter 

to,  237 
Hilwan,  265 
Hodge's  Outlines  of  Theology, 

122 
Hogg,  Mrs.  Bessie,  childhood, 
64,  6s ;  marriage  and  ship- 
wreck, 65-69;  letters  quoted, 
71,  75,  229;  smallpox,  17, 
103;  housekeeping  in  Assiut, 
126;  scalded,  133;  women's 
meeting,  149;  separation,  178- 
180 ;  simple  rule  of  duty,  194, 
229;  at  Dr.  Hogg's  death, 
287;  see  also  Dr.  Hogg- 
Family  Chronicle. 
Hogg,  Hope  W.,  illnesses,  135. 
175;  father's  companion.  I47; 
music,  151 ;  Dollar  Academy, 


300 


INDEX 


183,  229;  Assyriology,  252; 
slave  trade,  254 

Hogg,  John  ("the  Jake"),  19; 
ambition  for  his  son,  32,  39- 
40;  settles  in  Fife,  41 ;  death, 
42;  Mrs.  John  Hogg,  19,  38; 
death,  39 

Family :  James,  in  the  mine, 
26,  28;  at  University,  32; 
characteristics,  34;  at  Divin- 
ity Hall,  39 ;  death,  43 ;  Elisa, 
illness,  43 ;  invited  to  Alex- 
andria, 54;  death,  60;  others 
26,  31.   43,   S3 

Hogg,  Rev.  John,  D.D.,  parent- 
age, 19 ;  childhood,  20 ;  school- 
ing, 24;  in  the  mine,  24-29, 
36;  accident,  28;  reading  and 
study,  29-30;  conversion,  31; 
at  University,  32-43  ;  academ- 
ic record,  40.  41 ;  home  at 
Macmerry,  37;  death  of 
mother,  39 ;  proposes  emigra- 
tion, 39;  decides  for  minis- 
try, 40;  teaching  experience, 
41,  47;  death  of  father,  42; 
death  of  brother  James,  43; 
decides  for  foreign  field,  43 ; 
Divinity  Hall,  44-46;  ap- 
pointed to  Alexandria,  46 
In  Alexandria,  I:  as  "appren- 
tice," 49-61 ;  vi'ith  Dr.  Philip, 
51;  school  in  a  palace,  52; 
news  from  home,  53 ;  sister's 
non-arrival,  54 ;  relations 
with  Mr.  Lansing,  52,  55,  56 ; 
peril  of  massacre,  56;  visit  to 
Cairo,  58;  Suez  trip,  59 
Return  to  Scotland,  60; 
death  of  sister,  61  ;  agent  of 
American  U.  P.  Church,  62; 
marriage,  63-65 ;  shipwreck, 
66-69 

In  Alexandria,  II:  as  mission- 
ary, 70-100 ;  mission  house, 
71 ;  conditions  of  missionary 
life,  73;  ordained,  74;  tent 
life,  74;  in  full  charge,  77; 
general  treasurership,  78, 
102,  103 ;  young  men's  meet- 
ings, 79 ;  Sabbath,  80 ;  Arabic, 


81 ;  lack  of  space,  83 ;  birth 
of  a  daughter,  84 ;  financial 
straits,  84;  first  tour  on  the 
Nile,  89-98 

In  Cairo,  100-123  ;financial  re- 
port, 102;  wife  ill  with  small- 
pox, 103 ;  Patriarch's  hostili- 
ties, 104-107;  interview  with 
Patriarch,  107-109;  Copts 
interested,  iii;  marriage  of 
Bamba,  1 15-120;  redistribu- 
tion scheme,  121 ;  theological 
class,  122 

In  Assiut,  124-291 ;  arrival, 
125;  Ahmed's  rising,  126;  be- 
ginnings of  College  and  girls' 
school,  128;  excommunica- 
tion, 129;  death  of  first-born, 
134;  cholera  epidemic,  136; 
preaches  in  Turkish,  138; 
furlough  in  Scotland,  138 
College  finance,  143 ;  training 
workers,  145 ;  daily  pro- 
gramme, 146-149;  music,  149- 
153 ;  Patriarch's  visit  to 
Assiut,  154;  cases  of  perse- 
cution, 159;  Prince  of  Wales's 
visit,  164;  iconoclasts,  165- 
169;  market  day  changed, 
170;  church  building  opened, 
170;  Presbytery  becomes 
Egyptian,  173;  familv  events 
(see  below)  175-183;  fur- 
lough in  America,  181 
Reviving  the  work,  185  ;  Nile 
tour  186;  appeal  to  American 
Church,  191 ;  Australian  ap- 
pointment declined,  194;  pre- 
amble and  resolutions,  197- 
201 ;  letters  to  Dr.  Lansing, 
202,  206,  208;  Khedive's  visit, 
209;  future  of  college  as- 
sured, 210 

Village  work,  211-235;  story 
of  the  robbers,  215-218; 
Luxor  communion,  218-220; 
"  roughing "  it,  220 ;  battle 
with  ill-health,  221-222; 
takes  students  with  him,  222 ; 
twelve   weeks   a   year,   226; 


INDEX 


301 


Ekhmim,     226-230 ;      Minya, 

231-233  „ 

Arabi  Rebellion,  239-250; 
flight  from  Egypt,  243-246; 
return,  248;  friendliness  of 
Copts,  249,  250;  Mohamme- 
dan converts,  250;  corre- 
spondence, 251 ;  passing  trav- 
ellers, 252;  slave  trade,  253. 
254;  relations  with  British 
Government,  224,  255-258 ; 
Gordon,  258 

Plymouthite  controversy,  259- 
274;    Mr.    Pinkerton's    visit, 
261-263;   pastors'   class,   265; 
at     Hilwan,     265-268;     Rev. 
Girgis  Rafael,  269,  272,  273; 
visitation,  270;  writings,  271; 
"  Last    Irenicon,"   273 
Silver  wedding,  277;  Arabic 
Psalter,    278;    twenty    years 
work,       278-280 ;       Pressley 
Memorial    Institute,    280;    m 
Scotland,  281;  Didache,  282; 
last  sermon,  284 ;  death,  286 
Literary      work,      (Arabic) 
monthly    magazine,    122;    on 
Mohammedanism,     236;     on 
Plymouthite  controversy,  271, 
281,  282;  Arabic  Psalter,  278 
Translations :  Edward's  Com- 
mentary, 114;   Hodge's  Out- 
lines    of      Theology,      122; 
hymns,    123;    Peter    Parley's 
Universal  History,  137;  Bible 
Dictionary     (half     ongmal), 
176;  Caldervfood's  Handbook 
of    Moral    Philosophy,    225; 
Didache,      283 ;      thirty-nine 
manuscripts,  276;  circulation 

of,  143 

Characteristics:  generosity, 
22,  23 ;  fastidious  ear,  35  ;  love 
of  music,  38,  100,  149-153, 
267;  inability  to  rest,  58.  136; 
reserve,  76;  love  of  children. 
76,  13s;  linguistic  gifts,  13, 
35,  81,  122,  138;  teacher  and 
organiser,  72;  nurse,  42,  I35; 
as  revealed  in  Bamba  inci- 
dent,  119;  powers  of  work, 


137.   190.  212,   2T4;  office  of 
bishop,  144;  "keynote  of  his 
life,"      176,      276;      qualities 
shown  in  village  work,  213; 
appearance,     266,     267,    276; 
letter  writer,  180,  281 ;  youth- 
ful  spirit,  208,  276 
Opinions :  training  of  native 
workers    the    main    aim,    85, 
86;  function  of  Training  Col- 
lege, 187 ;  aim  and  method  of 
missionary     enterprise,     I97- 
201,  204;  type  of  Church,  236- 
238,      292 ;      Mohammedans, 
255;    religious    liberty,    250; 
British  policy,  257 
Methods:  in  preaching,  92 ;  in 
controversy,     261,     265;     in 
school     work,     loi ;     college 
finance,  143-145;  daily  meet- 
ing, 147;  scheme  of  lectures, 
80,     148;     teaching     singing, 
150;  church  work,  185;  over- 
sight by  means  of  statistics, 
224;  S.  S.  lesson  helps,  234 
Family  Chronicle  :  Mary  Liz- 
zie,  84,    132-134;    Hope,    see 
Hogg,  Hope  W. ;  births,  84, 
138,  175,  183,  246;  deaths,  134, 
177,    181 ;    children    ill,    I34> 
175,  189,  225,  246;  summer  in 
Syria,    177;    separation.    179; 
three   eldest   sent   to    Dollar, 
183;  reunion  sacrificed,  229; 
flight    from    Egypt,   243-246; 
death  of  Dr.  Hogg,  284-287; 
funeral,  287-289 
"  Hoj,"  13,  211 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  quoted,  259 
Hymn    writing    (Arabic),    122, 
123 

"Ibis,"  86,  125.  146.  185;  see 
also  under  Dr.  Hogg— Vil- 
lage Work. 

Inundation,  220,  225 

Isaiah,  quoted,  I54 

Iskaros,   i59 

Islam,  see   Mohammedans. 

Ismail,  letter  from  Lincoln,  87; 
grant  to  Coptic  school,  106; 


30« 


INDEX 


sides  with  Patriarch,  155 ; 
pardons  iconoclasts,  167,  169; 
deposed,  240;  character,  240 

Italian,  study  of,  46,  52,  73; 
preaching  in,  53,  56;  in  Pa- 
lermo, 182 

Itinerating,  see  under  Dr.  Hogg 
— Village  Work. 

"Jake,"  see  Hogg,  John  ("the 

Jake"). 
Jawili,  222 
Jedda  massacre,  56 
Jew  and  Gentile  compared  to 

Copt  and  Moslem,  93 
Jews,   Society   for   Conversion 

of,  46,  54 
Johnstone,  Col.,  256 
Johnstone,   Dr.,    176,    185,   206, 

207 

Kay,  Bessie,  64;  see  also  Mrs. 
Bessie  Hogg. 

Keneh,  126 

Khedive,  57,  87,  106,  155,  167, 
169,  209,  240,  241 ;  see  Mo- 
hammed Ali,  Said,  Ismail, 
Tewfik. 

"Khalas,"  283 

Khartum,  257 

Khayatt,  Mr.  Wasif,  125,  130, 
157,  163 

Kus,  159,  160,  187,  199,  223 ; 
"  Winnowing  Fan  of  Kus," 
161 

Lansing,  Rev.  Julian,  D.D.,  first 
meets  Mr.  Hogg,  52 ;  settles 
in  Alexandria,  55 ;  character- 
istics, 56 ;  mentioned,  58,  70, 
75 ;  removes  to  Cairo,  "j"] ; 
Nile  tour  with  Lord  Aber- 
deen, 86 ;  with  Mr.  Hogg,  88 ; 
illness,  100;  furlough,  106, 
120,  123;  death  of  first  wife, 
136 ;  letters  to,  202,  206,  208 ; 
at  Hilwan,  265-268 ;  Psalter, 
278;  on  Dr.  Hogg's  death, 
290 

Letter  writing,  53,  87,  180,  281 

Light  of  Asia,  252 


Lincoln,  Abraham,  87 
Literary   work,   see  Dr.   Hogg 

— Literary  Work. 
Lloyd,  Clifford,  256 
"  Lucifero,"  74,  84 
Luxor,  86,  187,  218,  225 

McCague,  Rev.  Thos.,  52,  86 

McKown,  77,  123,  280 

Macmerry,  home  in,  37 

Maharajah,  see  Dhuleep  Singh. 

Mahdi,  255,  258,  266;  an  earlier 
Mahdi,  126 

Mahmud  Sami,  242 

Malta,  246 

Market  day  changed,  169,  191, 
279 

"  Mary  Lizzie,"  84,  132,  134 

Massacres,  Jedda,  56;  Alexan- 
dria, 56,  242;  Assiut,  126; 
Cairo,  248 

Melbourne  appointment  de- 
clined, 194 

Mellawi,  186,  191 

Memnon,  219 

Menjalut,  220 

Minya,  127,  231-233,  235 

Missionary  Association 
formed,  123   (note). 

Missionary  life,  character  of, 
72,  75 

Missionary  Society,  ill 

Mohammed  Ali,  156 

Mohammedans :  ferment  in 
Alexandria,  56;  pupils  in 
school,  79 ;  attitude  to 
Christian  nations,  88,  89,  240; 
woman's  place,  95 ;  Imam  at 
Bahjoura,  93 ;  Ahmed's  ris- 
ing, 126;  book  on  Moslem 
problem,  236;  Arabi's  influ- 
ence, 247,  269;  converts  to 
Christianity,  250,  256 ;  Mahdi, 
255,  258,  266 

Mokattam,  266 

Monsurah,  231 

Moon,  Mr.,  139 

Morley,  Lord,  quoted,  99 

Moslems,  see  Mohammedans. 

Motiah,  170,  185,  199,  223 

Mummy,  simile  of,  96 


INDEX 


303 


Music,  Dr.  Hogg's  love  of,  38, 
100,  149-153;  qualities  of 
Egyptian  music,  149.  I50 

Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  quoted,  211 

Nakadah,  223 

Nakheilah,  170,  172,  185,  I99, 
223,  270 

Native  Church,  see  Evangelical 
Church. 

Native  workers,  training  of,  85, 
86,  121,  143,  145,  146,  222; 
see  also  Preamble  and  Reso- 
lutions, 197-201 

Nile,  described,  87,  90-91; 
source  of,  164;  Mr.  Hogg's 
first  tour,  89-98;  later  tour, 
186;  first  journey  to  Assiut, 
125;  White  Nile,  i57;  see 
also  under  Dr.  Hogg— Vil- 
lage Work. 
North,  Christopher,  34 
Northbrooke,   Lord,  257 

Ordination  of  Mr.  Hogg,  74 

Palermo,  182 

Parley,  Peter,  Universal  His- 
tory, 137        ^      .     ^,       , 

Patriarch,  see  Coptic  Church. 

Patriarchate,  Mr.  Hogg's  visit 
to,  108,  109;  prayer  meeting 
at,  in,  112 

Paul,  St.,  quoted,  99;  Myers  s, 
211 

Penston,  18;  colliery,  19;  In- 
fant School,  24 

Philip,  Rev.  Dr.,  46;  attitude 
to  Mr.  Hogg,  51 

Pilgrim's    Progress,    Bunyan  s, 

29,  148  .        , 

Pinkerton,  Rev.  B.  P.,  260,  264 

Plymouth,  68 

Plymouth  Brethren,  268;  con- 
troversy, 259-274 

Preamble  and  Resolutions,  197- 
201 

Presbytery,  see  Evangelical 
Church. 

Pressley  Memorial  Institute, 
128,  280 


"  Protestant  College  for 
Egypt,"    see   Alexandria. 

Protestants,  see  Evangelical 
Church. 

Psalter,  Arabic,  278 

Pyramids,  266 

Races,  Dr.  Hogg  runs,  267 
Rafael,   Rev.    Girgis,   269,   272, 

273 
Ramleh,  74,  75,   136,   160,   167, 

176,  177,  188,  243;  tent  life, 

Redistribution  scheme,  121 

Reformed  Church,  see  Evan- 
gelical Church. 

Richardson,  Mary  (Mrs. 
Hogg),  see  Hogg,  John 
("the  Jake"). 

Robbers,  215-218 

Robertson,  Rev.  James,  63,  65 

Roth,  Adolph,  254 

"  Roughing  "  it,  220 

Ruskin,  quoted,  154.  211 

Sabbath  market  changed,  169, 
191,  279 

Sabbath  School,  56,  80,  148, 
185 ;  lesson  helps,  185,  234 

Said,  prevents  massacre,  57 

Sayce,  Professor,  252 

"  Scamander,"  65  , 

Seminary,  see  Assiut  Tram- 
ing  College. 

Schools,  Protestant,  50,  52,  86, 
loi,  128,  209,  228-230,  232, 
279;  Coptic,  106,  131,  249, 
279;  certificates  of  exemp- 
tion, 1 56 ;  see  Sabbath 
schools,    Girl's   schools. 

Scotland,  see  Furlough,  Uni- 
ted Presbyterian  Church. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  quoted,  19 

Scriptures,  see  Bible. 

Sharif  Pasha,  167,  168,  242 

Shenoodah,  Mr.,  see  Hanna. 

Singing,  teaching  of,  73,   149" 

151 
Slave  trade,  253.  254 
Smallpox,  17.  103.  175 
Sol  fa  system,  150 


INDEX 


Stallybrass,  J.  S.,  quoted,  no 
Statistics,     114,     195,     279-280; 

oversight  by  means  of,  224 
Strang,  Rev.  D.,  201,  207 
Students,  see  Native  Workers. 
Sudan,  159,  255,  258 
Suez  trip,  59-60 
Suhaj,  235 
Sultan,  241,  242 
Syria,  177,  180 
Systematic  giving,  in,  170 

Tadrus,  Mr.,  see  Yusuf. 

Tahta,  216,  218 

Tanassa,     131,     161,     171 ;     his 

brother,   166 
Taxes,  257 
Teaching    of    the    Twelve 

Apostles,  282 
Tel-el-Kabir,  246 
Tent  life,  75 
Tewfik     Pasha    visits     Assiut, 

209;  character  of,  240,  241 
Thayer,  Mr.,  99 
Theological  class,  in  Cairo,  122 ; 

see     also     Assiut     Training 

College. 
Times,  manager  of,  252 
Tithed  lands,  tax  on,  257 
Todd,  Miiller  &  Co.,  99 
Training    College,    see    Assiut 

Training    College;    see    also 

Native  Workers. 
Tranent    U.     P.    Church,    21 ; 

letter  to  pastor  of,  77 
Translation    into    Arabic,    see 

Dr.  Hogg — Literary  Work. 
Turkish,  preaching  in,  138 
Type  of  Church,  236-238,  292 

United  Presbyterian  Church  of 
America  begins  work  in 
Alexandria,    55,    56;    adopts 


Mr.  Hogg  as  its  agent,  62; 
Mr.  Hogg's  appeals,  120,  191, 
233 ;  relation  to  Egyptian 
ir'resbytery,  174;  Dr.  Hogg's 
visit,  181 ;  fall  in  contribu- 
tions, 196;  appeal  from  As- 
sociation, 203 
United  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Scotland,  Divinity  Hall,  44, 
79,  206;  surrenders  Alexan- 
dria station,  54 ;  Mr.  Hogg's 
letters  to,  87;  addresses 
synod,  139;  last  address,  97 

Vermin,  71,  88,  125,  128 

Viceroy,  see  Khedive. 

Village  life,  91 ;  village  work, 

see     Dr.     Hogg — V  i  1 1  a  g  e 

Work. 

Waddell,  Rev.  Hope  M.,  63-65 
"  Wail,"  Dr.   Hogg's,   194 
Wales,  Prince  of,  164 
Wasif,  Mr.,  see  Khayatt. 
Watson,    Rev.    Andrew,    D.D., 
89 ;  "  six  Watsons  !  "  99,  106 ; 
general     treasurer,     123 ;     at 
Assiut,    176,    207;    proposed 
transfer,  201 ;  in  Alexandria, 
246;  after  Arabi,  248;  at  Dr. 
Hogg's  death,  286 
Westminster  College,  Pa.,  181 
White  Nile,  157 
Wilson,      John      (Christopher 

North),  34 
Wissa  Buktor,   Mr.,  289 
Wissa,    Mr.    Hanna,    130,    163, 

165-169 
Wolseley,  Lord,  248,  257 
Women,  position  of,  95 ;  educa- 
tion, 280;  see  Girls'  schools. 

Yusuf,  Rev.  Tadrus,  171,  173, 
223 


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